Posted on 11/18/2006 5:09:31 PM PST by thackney
To ensure there's enough corn to fuel humans as well as vehicles, scientists are urging more research into boosting corn yields and improving ethanol production.
Many key issues related to expanding the nation's ethanol industry aren't being studied under current government programs, said Kenneth G. Cassman, director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"It's the core issue to ensuring that we don't come up short in food supply, and don't have high consumer prices, and can still maintain expansion of the ethanol industry," he said.
Cassman is co-author of "Convergence of Agriculture and Energy: Implications for Research and Policy," a study released Tuesday by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, an international consortium of 38 scientific and professional societies.
"The main thing that we all have to be aware of is the complexity of the feed, food and fuel interaction, and how policy and research have to be conducted in a very conscientious fashion, or we are going to have ourselves out of balance," said John M. Bonner, director of the Iowa-based consortium.
Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, and a vocal opponent of ethanol, said many of the poorest countries around the world that use corn as a food staple will have to compete for supplies gobbled up by ethanol production. They'll also pay more because of increases in corn prices, which he said have climbed 40 percent this year.
For U.S. consumers, Brown said, the price of animal products - meat, eggs, cheese and dairy products - will increase if livestock operations have to pay more for feed.
"We used to have a food economy and an energy economy. Now you can't draw a line between them anymore," he said.
Since January 2001, U.S. ethanol production has grown dramatically, climbing from 1.7 billion gallons to 4.8 billion gallons in June 2006, according to the report.
"Some in the corn industry believe it will be possible to produce 16 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015 while also meeting corn grain requirements for human food and livestock feed," the report said.
But in some areas, including northwestern Iowa, the ethanol industry is already using up much of the available corn, Bonner said. In turn, that can pressure the livestock industry.
"It puts quite a strain on the livestock industry ... because of the amounts they can use and the sensitivity to corn price," he said.
A byproduct of ethanol production called distiller's grains can be used as feed, but experts say it isn't the best source of food for some livestock, including poultry and swine.
Other considerations, the scientists say, are the effects of ethanol production on the economy and the environment.
"We have abruptly entered a new era for agriculture that no one predicted," Cassman said. "That is an era where the value of agriculture and its commodities are being determined more by the price of energy than by the value of commodities for food or feedstock."
Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers, said the industry is very aware of the food versus fuel debate, "but believe it is a false choice."
"American farmers can and will do both," he said. "There is a lot of room for growth in the corn-to-ethanol industry, as the National Corn Growers have pointed out."
What's the problem? Have them put an initiative on the California ballot -- a $700 billion bond for ethanol research. After it passes there, they can go to Missouri . . .
Well, ethanol does not have to come from corn. If cellulosic ethanol is finally developed, it could be made from kudzu vines and the like. But more ethanol research is surely needed. I would like to research [with comparative tastings] pre-phylloxera vintages, but at $7000+ a bottle a nice research grant would really help.
$4,000/acre Iowa farmland is just ahead. Maybe higher.
I've been researching a bottle of Knob Creek, and I must say it's going well.
That kudzu ethanolcould fuel the world in a couple of weeks
The myth is that the corn is consumed in ethanol production, that using it for fuel prevents its use as a feedstock. Not true. It simply doubles its uses.
I keep reading that the production of ethanol uses almost as much energy as it generates. Any comment? Yes, I admit that I am a potential financial beneficiary as an expectancy to what I see as a scam, but whatever.
Based on old models and calculating every energy cost of the process, that used to be true. But with higher-sugar/starch corns (or other feedstocks), use of the cobs, stalks, and husks as fuel for the distillation process, and other refinements in the overall flow, it is no longer valid.
There is a plant in Mead, Nebraska that has a positive energy flow from the plant itself. The DDG is fed to cattle, and the collected manure is anaerobically digested to produce huge quantities of methane, which is used to fuel the distillation, power the plant, dry the grain, and still leave enough to sell back into the grid. And that's not including the energy produced from the ethanol itself.
And it's interesting that the energy cost of producing a barrel of oil is never calculated nearly as stringently.
Ethanol's biggest drawback is that it can't be pumped through pipelines like crude can because it draws water. That makes distribution more costly, especially where the trucks and trains hauling it have to burn $3-a-gallon diesel fuel.
So does it pencil or not? I wonder how much the subsidy is per "gallon of oil" replaced is. Do you have any info on that?
If there is a large throughput, then ethanol pipeline is OK- one would need to have a LOT of water to draw in. There are shorter pipelines in chemical plants, and not much water gets in. Ought to be doable. Also, since ethanol viscosity is lower than that of crude oil, pumping it is easier, or more ethanol could be pumped through an existing pipeline, than oil. And the spills would be less of a problem, too. Exxon Valdez would have resulted in some drunken otters.
Who CARES what the scientists want? How about what the market and Citizens want?...
McCain opposed ethanol subsidies which hurt him badly in Iowa back in 2000.
The mileage on ethanol fuels is not as good as gasoline so we may actually save less at the pump, or at least have to make more trips.
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