ALBANY, N.Y. -- Farmers, businesses and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce.

Supporters of ethanol and other biofuels contend they burn cleaner than fossil fuels, reduce U.S. dependence on oil and give farmers another market to sell their produce. Gov. George Pataki said last year he wants to "make New York's biofuels industry one of the strongest in the nation."

But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and eastern North America United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent.

It takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found.

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment," according to the study by Cornell's David Pimentel and Berkeley's Tad Patzek. They conclude the country would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy.

The researchers included such factors as the energy used in producing the crop, costs that were not used in other studies that supported ethanol production, said Pimentel.

The study also omitted $3 billion in state and federal government subsidies that go toward ethanol production in the United States each year, payments that mask the true costs, Pimentel said.

Ethanol is an additive blended with gasoline to reduce auto emissions and increase its octane levels. Its use has grown rapidly since 2004, when the federal government banned the use of the additive MTBE to enhance the cleaner burning of fuel. About 3.6 billion gallons of ethanol were produced last year in the United States, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group.

The ethanol industry claims that using 8 billion gallons of ethanol a year will allow refiners to use 2 billion fewer barrels of oil. The oil industry disputes that, saying the ethanol mandate would have negligible impact on oil imports.

Ethanol producers dispute Pimentel and Patzek's findings, saying the data is outdated and doesn't take into account profits that offset costs.

Michael Brower, director of community and government relations at SUNY's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, points to reports by the Energy and Agriculture departments have shown the ethanol produced delivers at least 60 percent more energy the amount used in production. The college has worked extensively on producing ethanol from hardwood trees.

"We need to look at biomass for liquid fuels," said Brower. "There is no question in my mind this will work."

Northeast Biofuels is building a refinery to produce ethanol from corn at a former Miller brewery in Fulton. Ethanol production at the plant is expected to begin in late 2006, spokesman Stewart Hancock said.

Last October, a group of New York farmers announced plans to build an $80 million ethanol plant just outside Seneca Falls, 30 miles west of Syracuse. It will produce about 50 million gallons of ethanol a year and employ 35 people.

"The timing for everything with ethanol is absolutely correct," said Ed Primrose, chairman of Empire Biofuels and the owner of a 1,000-acre corn farm. "Ethanol addresses national energy security, the negative outflow of money to OPEC nations. It helps bring stability to the energy business."

NextGen Fuel Inc. plans to use leased space at the Fulton facility to build New York state's first biodiesel plant to make motor fuel from raw materials such as soybean oil and french fry grease. The state is giving $4 million to help with construction of the $157 million plant.

NextGen chairman John Gaus said the Pimentel and Patzek study ignores the billions of dollars the country spends importing oil and insuring its safe transport from the Persian Gulf, as well as the public health costs from air pollution caused by burning oil.

Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine with few or no modifications. It is often blended with petroleum diesel to reduce the propensity to gel in cold weather.

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