Seeking Newer Ways of Ethanol Preparation

NYT News Service ^ | February 21, 2006 | Matthew L Wald

[kellynla]

The endless fields of corn in the Midwest can be distilled into endless gallons of ethanol, a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that could end any worldwide oil shortage and reduce emissions that cause global warming.

There is only one catch: Turning corn into ethanol takes energy. For every gallon that an ethanol manufacturing plant produces, it uses the equivalent of almost two-fifths of a gallon of fuel (usually natural gas), and that does not count the fuel needed to make fertilizer for the corn, run the farm machinery, or truck the ethanol to market.

The use of all that fossil fuel to make ethanol substantially reduces its value as an alternative source of energy. Ethanol production is expected to hit 5 billion gallons this year, equal to more than three percent of gasoline supplies, and more ethanol distilleries are being built. But if ethanol is to realize its potential, its proponents recognize that they will have to develop new ways to make it. "In this industry, you can't take a parochial view of your business," said William A Lee, general manager of Chippewa Valley Ethanol, in Benson, Minn., United States and former chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group.

[Central Scrutiniser]

You can grow corn much faster, and with much less water hydroponically. You get twice as many crops, use up less space , save water and its easier to control for disease and damage.

[fallujah-nuker]

In 1997 there were 36,000,000 acres of otherwise tillable US land enrolled in the (misnamed) Conservation Reserve Program. Assume that, of these, 80% could be returned to crop production and that 20% should be permanently planted to, say, timber. If the 30,000,000 acres would yield an average of 120 bushels of corn per acre and each bushel would yield 2.8 gallons of ethanol, we would have an additional 10 Billion gallons of ethanol per year. Would that help?

The figures I saw for switchgrass were an average of around 1000 gallons per acre so 30,000,000 acres of idle land would produce about 30 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol. To the extent that we export grain and the Islamofascists import grain some land being used to grow energy crops could strike a double blow against them, loss of oil export revenue and less grain available to feed the next generation of terrorists.

[fallujah-nuker]

Cogeneration for ethanol sounds viable, if the main need is for simple heating for product breakdown. Everytime I see an ethanol plant I think "moonshine", and that's not a hard process to implement. :-)

Thanks for the post, I probably should have said waste heat rather than steam. Some of the generation IV reactor designs would actually make good sources of process heat. Nuclear cogeneration is not all that new of an idea either, in the sixties Dow Chemical had a plant in Midland (Michigan?) that was going to have a nuclear power plant built next to it and the plan was to use some of the heat. The power plant ended up not being built so they probably use natural gas or coal instead for process heat.

[neutronsgalore]

"If we produced all our petroleum needs in North America, how many aircraft carriers, bombers and military personnel do you think we could do away with?"

None. We'll need them in a couple decades for the inevitable war with China. In fact, we should be building up.

[edsheppa]

According to thackney's analysis (which I consider realistic), that'd get us 1/10 of the way there. A good start.

I understand that other "crops" have a much higher potential ethanol yield. For example I have read that switchgrass produces enough biomass to potentially yield 1000 gallons/acre.

[Mr. Lucky]

Any idea what the by-products of switch grass distillation are?

[edsheppa]

No, but I know converting corn to ethanol does have some economically useful byproducts (I'm sure this was your point). On the other hand, switchgrass probably grows a lot of places corn doesn't. In other areas sugar cane might be best. It'd be a balancing act.

[Mr. Lucky]

I'm just not familiar with switchgrass other than that it is grown as a hay in areas generally unsuitable for legumes. There would probably be a fairly substantial residual mass left over after distillation and I was curious what use was made of it.

[Dracula]

Excellent article regarding ethanol production. I am vice president of an architect / engineering firm. My firm works with clients to develop alternative energy systems.

We always look into developing more than one form of alternative energy. We contend that the ideal situation is to have a biodiesel and ethanol plant located on top of a coal bed or coal mine methane source , accompanied by wind power, solar power, and a hydrogen cell.

The technology is currently available to derive energy from nearly any bio - source ( anaerobic digester systems, pyrolastic conversion systems, your own ethanol or biodiesel, and many other sources.

We all know their is no "free" energy. We all know energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only converted. We need to focus on not just creating energy for sale, but to serve our own processes.

Again, excellent observations. I am located in an area rich in alternative fuel resources. What is alarming to me is that the rush is apparently on to see how much of these resources we can sell at a minuscule return. An example would be the farmer who sells his corn to Mr. Big for $ 2.00 per bushel, which is in turn converted to 2.7 gallons of ethanol, which he buys from Mr. Big for $ 2.30 per gallon.
Not good economics. We need more "grass roots' alternative energy development.

Thank you for your observations.

[kellynla]

And thank you for your work.

I also like the desalination/nuclear/hydro/electrical plant idea too.
http://www.aaenvironment.com/nuhydro.htm

I'm no authority on any of these alternatives but whatever their cost; it's cheaper than the life of one Marine.

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[buck61]

My same sentiments. In fact, I might have some lying here around the house, sic, cough, ah!

[buck61]

I'll tell you one thing for sure, I'm not putting my Jack Danials in my car or truck, I will walk, if I'm able.

[nightdriver]

"Ethanol production is expected to hit 5 billion gallons this year..."

That's a lot of hooch!!

[buck61]

Eminet domain, now there is a catchy word going around lately. Could it be the SCOTUS is looking down the road at our energy demands? Na, I don't believe they would do that, would they?

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

There was also no mention of the astronomical amounts of water that the current process requires.

Here in the Midwest, we are already having problems finding enough water to meet the current levels of production. We have been having relatively wet growing seasons here, in the last 5 years, but if there were any drought of any kind here, production would fall off drastically.

Corn also takes huge amounts of water to grow, usually requiring additional irrigation to ensure a stable crop. This, as well as the production requirements, water is the biggest issue.

[P-40]

I'm not putting my Jack Danials in my car or truck


I had some moonshine makers in my family and I remember the old stories of them running vehicles on the stuff from time to time.

[techcor]

Bump to find later.