PITTSBURGH, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. engineers have found a way to improve ethanol production, thereby helping ensure biofuels become a significant part of the U.S. energy supply. Carnegie Mellon University chemical engineers say they used advanced process design methods combined with mathematical optimization techniques to reduce the operating costs of corn-based bio-ethanol plants by more than 60 percent. The technology involves redesigning the distillation process by using a multicolumn system and a network for energy recovery that ultimately reduces the consumption of steam, a major energy component in the production of corn-based ethanol. "This new design reduces the manufacturing...