Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How Will the U.S. Feed the Ethanol Appetite?
Pork ^ | November 02, 2006 | Marlys Miller

Posted on 11/02/2006 6:59:01 AM PST by thackney

One could argue that there was a shortage of corn before this year's harvest even began. As of Oct. 1, 105 ethanol plants dotted the U.S. landscape, with a combined ethanol production capacity of 5 billion gallons.

The Renewable Fuels Association tells us there are 42 more plants under construction and 7 plant expansions underway. Those efforts will add 3 billion gallons to the U.S. ethanol production capacity. Looking further down the road, there are more than 300 business proposals for additional ethanol plants. If those are built, it would add more than 20 billion gallons of ethanol.

Keith Collins, USDA chief economist, says in 2010 90 million acres of corn will be needed to fulfill ethanol, livestock and export demands. He says corn prices would need to be in the $3.10 to $3.20 range to attract that many acres to corn. Corn futures for 2007 are pushing close to those levels, indicating that the price signals have begun to entice a substantial increase in corn acreage. "But where will that acreage come from?" asks Chad Hart, Iowa State researcher.

"The last time this country planted more than 90 million acres of corn was in 1944. In 1932, over 113 million corn acres were planted," he notes. "In that year, Texas was the sixth largest and Georgia was the tenth largest corn producing state, with nearly 10 million corn acres between them. So a historical analysis would indicate the possible return of corn acreage in the Southeast and Great Plains."

But the prospects for more corn acres in the Southeast and western Great Plains is much lower today. Large amounts of land planted to corn during those earlier decades is no longer in agricultural production. In 2006, Georgia corn producers planted 280,000 acres and Texas had 1.75 million acres. Total cropland in Georgia is now less than 5 million acres.

Due to population and land use, the upper Midwest and the eastern Great Plains are the mostly likely candidates for expansion, says Hart.

One potential pool of acreage is in the Conservation Reserve Program. However, it appears that only 7.7 million acres are scheduled for release, much of which is more better suited for wheat than corn. "So while some CRP land can be brought into corn production in the short term, CRP acreage will only be part of the shift," he notes.

The most likely source of new corn acreage will come from shifts in crop rotation from soybeans to corn. That raises the question of whether the two-year rotation between corn and soybeans will disappear -- which also will reduce annual yields. Hart believes a three-year rotation -- two years of corn followed by one year of soybeans-- could surface.

"Given the crude oil price outlook for the next several years, ethanol’s expansion is apt to continue for some time," says Hart.

As Collins points out, ethanol plants can compete for corn even at record high corn prices. Other corn users, such as livestock producers, other processors and the export market will feel the pinch. Certainly more corn acreage will be found, where that will occur, whether it will be enough, and what else will be displaced, is a long and evolving scenario.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: energy; ethanol
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-126 next last
To: P-40

You write in a response to the posed question:
No, where will the water come from, for all that corn???

You wrote: The sky, generally.

The problem the astute writer points out is that about 4 gallons of treated groundwater are used during the production cycle for just a single gallon of ethynol; he is not talking about the water needed for just growing the crops.

In Minnesota plants have been built before anybody realized the plant would use up the greater part of the available ground water supply; in addition to having to deal with this massive amount of contaminated water that has to be cleaned before it can be allowed to enter the water chain again.


21 posted on 11/02/2006 7:23:35 AM PST by WBL 1952
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Youngman442002
Much of Iowa's fallow land has allowed and encouraged pheasant hunting over the past 25 years. If all the hilly land is plowed and all the slews and grassways are put into row crops, where is Mr. Rooster gonna live ?
22 posted on 11/02/2006 7:26:20 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: WBL 1952
The plants won't be worthless, they will be worth less, and the front end of the plant (the conversion part) will have to be retooled to take advantage of new technology. This of course, will trash the capital value of the corn-based facility and force the shareholders to pony up yet again to protect their investment.

About the time of this rationalization of value, we should also see some roll-ups, consolidation and recalculation of the economies of scale. Capitalism is ongoing creative destruction. It would all be peaceful and productive except that government cannot help it self and always weighs in to distort the market and thus the decisions. In the process, a lot of money is just wasted.
23 posted on 11/02/2006 7:27:54 AM PST by theBuckwheat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: thackney

yikes...thanks...i forgot the <sarcasm off? tag ...


24 posted on 11/02/2006 7:42:39 AM PST by stylin19a ("Klaatu Barada Nikto")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: thackney
This is a link to a story on a hybrid strain of sugar cane that doubles tons per acre for the crop--used in Brazil and Japan for ethanol. Perhaps it could be grown in the Southeastern U.S. We used to grow a lot of cane in Tennessee.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa001&articleID=E2C9CD9303B5C85296B84213935F37FD
25 posted on 11/02/2006 7:48:52 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee (Anything a politician gives you he has first stolen from you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: thackney

I think that paying farmers not to plant acreage should be a thing of the past.


26 posted on 11/02/2006 7:52:31 AM PST by Mike Darancette ( Europe will either become Christian again or become Muslim. Not the "culture of nothing".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat

You write:The plants won't be worthless, they will be worth less, and the front end of the plant (the conversion part) will have to be retooled to take advantage of new technology. This of course, will trash the capital value of the corn-based facility and force the shareholders to pony up yet again to protect their investment.


You miss the fact these plants have all been built in the wrong place for cellulose based ethynol production. Retool all you want then pay transportation costs for the raw materials to get to them? I don't think so.


27 posted on 11/02/2006 7:54:54 AM PST by WBL 1952
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: thackney

link to argonne lab,
look at,top-right graph on page two,

liquid energy needed to produce ethanol,
one-tenth of product, or something like that

http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf#search='ethanol%20btu'

copy-paste, not sure if working right, use the whole link


28 posted on 11/02/2006 8:01:46 AM PST by greasepaint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: thackney
"How Will The U.S. Feed The Ethanol Appetite"

With corn, of course.

...bon apatite'!

29 posted on 11/02/2006 8:05:47 AM PST by Landru (That does it, no sleep number for you pal.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: P-40; All
I read somewhere that sugar beets produce MUCH more ethanol per ton/acre. If that is true, why is that not planted more?

Nam Vet

30 posted on 11/02/2006 8:15:42 AM PST by Nam Vet (Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding liberals that stops bright ideas from penetrating.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Nam Vet
If that is true, why is that not planted more?

I've heard that also and I'm sure there is a lot of truth to the statement. I think the reason you don't hear more about its use is more political than anything else. Anything involving sugar gets into some serious battles with the sugar industry and that industry is one convoluted mess of subsidies and trade barriers and special treatment. And because sugar can be used to make ethanol, all that mess becomes part of ethanol production.
31 posted on 11/02/2006 8:38:38 AM PST by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: stylin19a
That would certainly be a market solution.

I have family in Brasil and have seen the ethanol industry there grow up and mature since the seventies. They have cleared a lot of land for sugar cane cultivation in order to feed their distilleries. The alcohol cars do not have quite the performance the gasoline cars have, but they get the job done. I would suspect the massive clearance of native habitats would disturb the Eco-PC types who also always decry the use of fossil fuels. It is, however, in every sense a mature industry in Brasil.

Last time I was there, I met a cab driver who had the ultimate flex-fuel vehicle. He could fill the tank with gasoline or alcohol or any combination of the two, depending on which was cheaper at the moment. He also had a compressed natural gas tank in the back. The performance was poor on CNG, but it was way cheaper than either gasoline or alcohol. He ran the car on CNG on flat land and used gasoline or alcohol in the hills. The best part is he could switch on the fly. I understand the CNG goes for the equivalent of about $1.30 a gallon (I assume that means you can travel the same distance one gallon of gasoline would carry you for $1.30). Not many stations had CNG, though. I read recently that there is a system for slow refueling that is available for home use in the United States (it takes 18 hours rather than the few minutes it would take at a compressor-equipped CNG station).

I like the idea of choosing among three different fuels according to the lowest price at the moment. That would be an even better market-based solution to high gasoline prices.
32 posted on 11/02/2006 8:57:22 AM PST by Law is not justice but process
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: greasepaint
the liquid fuel energy gain, is more than ten to one

You should actually try reading the link you posted.

As you can see, the fossil energy input per unit of ethanol is lower—0.74 million Btu fossil energy consumed for each 1 million Btu of ethanol delivered

Also the information contained in the link about gasoline is incorrect.

33 posted on 11/02/2006 9:28:36 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: thackney

are you capable of understanding what the word
--> liquid <-- means ?
it means, kinda watery

coal, natural gas, are not liquids
liquid is not necessarily 'fossil'


34 posted on 11/02/2006 9:37:33 AM PST by greasepaint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: greasepaint

oops, meant, energy inputs such as coal,
are not necessarily liquid


35 posted on 11/02/2006 9:41:39 AM PST by greasepaint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: thackney

who gives a flying f''' about 'fossil',
as long as it doesn't come from the a-rabs


36 posted on 11/02/2006 9:44:10 AM PST by greasepaint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: greasepaint

The website is that of the National Corngrowers Association. The somewhat edited version of the ANL presentation material has significant flaws, as does the original material. The gasoline energy balance includes the primary energy of all fossil material inputs in addition to the energy required to refine and produce the final product.

The ethanol balance uses only the energy of the finished energy input materials. This is absurd. One of these things is not like the other. Note that the commonly-accepted energy return for gasoline is a 10-1 ratio.

Also omitted from the ethanol balance is a large energy credit taken for a non-energy co-product, DDGS ("dried distillers grains with solubles"). Without this credit, the original USDA paper reports a 6% positive energy balance.

More fatal is the universally-ignored impact on net productivity. One must divide the gross ethanol production by 16.7 to get the incremental energy production. When one considers that U.S. annual gasoline consumption is 143.9 billion gallons (10/27/2006), or the equivalent energy of 219.7 billion gallons of ethanol, one can see the limitations of an ethanol energy economy.

There is not enough arable land in the U.S. to supply even an E10 transportation economy, assuming we were willing to forego food production. The current lust for fuel ethanol would vanish without the 51 cent per gallon subsidy.


37 posted on 11/02/2006 10:00:50 AM PST by razved
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: razved

Of course you are correct and ethanol is a great big scam levied on the taxpayer and consumer all to buy the GOP more farm votes. It is disgusting. And don't even get me started on sugar subsidies.

jas3


38 posted on 11/02/2006 10:17:08 AM PST by jas3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: razved

fossil has nothing to do with this,
the idea is to cut the a-rabs out the deal


39 posted on 11/02/2006 10:34:40 AM PST by greasepaint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: jas3
all to buy the GOP more farm votes.

The farmers are going to get the subsidies whether there is ethanol or not, it is just a matter of whether they will be paid to grow or to not grow. With the GOP you just get something for the money.
40 posted on 11/02/2006 10:54:12 AM PST by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-126 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson