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Fermenting corn and distilling it into alcohol is a very simple process, which whiskey makers and bootleggers have taken advantage of for centuries. When oil security became a national issue, it was quite simple to ramp up the industrial production of corn-based ethanol and to blend it with gasoline, to reduce the amount of petroleum needed.
Several issues emerged over this practice, however. First, there is the moral issue of using a food staple to fuel autos in a world where people die from starvation. Second, consumption of so much corn for this purpose raised the prices on a lot of food, including most meat, because so much feed for chickens, pigs and cows is made from corn. Finding another feedstock for the production of ethanol would reduce the pressure on food prices.
It's long been known that corn stover - the stalks, leaves, and husks that are left over after the corn is harvested - can be converted into alcohol too, but it uses an entirely different and more complex process. Until now nobody has been able to demonstrate the process on a practical scale, but now 3 separate projects are coming on line...
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"Fantasy" of Fuel From Corn Waste Gets Big U.S. Test
Project Liberty is the first of three commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants opening this year.
Despite the hurdles, three major cellulosic ethanol projects are moving ahead this year in the United States. Aside from Project Liberty, which received both federal and state funding and is set to produce 25 million gallons a year at full capacity, the Spanish renewable energy company Abengoa plans to produce the same volume from its facility in southwestern Kansas, opening in October. And the chemical giant Dupont is opening a plant this year in Nevada, Iowa, with a target of 30 million gallons per year. (To put those amounts in perspective, the U.S. consumed nearly 135 billion gallons of gasoline in 2013.)
Just a small note: I worked as an assistant on a pilot project to such a thing around 1980. The main man was a petro engineer who was using a miniature cracking tower to produce the project. The goal was to produce a plant (never came about, went out of business) that a farmer could use the waste to produce a local fuel.
It's a start. Let's see. I've been reading about this cellulosic ehtanol for quite some time with no results.
I don't mind it as much when it doesn't compete with food. Otherwise, not real happy with ethanol at the moment. And it sure hasn't helped fuel prices DECLINE any.
It's a start. Let's see. I've been reading about this cellulosic ehtanol for quite some time with no results.
That's pretty much the point of this thread. After years of talking about the potential, there are now not just one, but three competitive pilot projects at hand.
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I don't mind it as much when it doesn't compete with food. Otherwise, not real happy with ethanol at the moment. And it sure hasn't helped fuel prices DECLINE any.
No, but that was never the point. Energy security was.
What I like about it, if it pans out, is that it allows taking something that is nearly worthless, and converting it into a useful asset.
ON THE OTHER HAND..........the project I was working on, if I recall right, was to use the food and plant waste, not just of corn, but of many, if not all such materials. One of the things I had to do was pour methanol, I think, into the result drum so if and when visited by the "Beer Police", they could test it and be assured we didn't have consumable alcohol produced by an improper means.
So these projects sound "great", right? Well, let's think a little bit down the road and say it does work, it does take off like hot cakes.. What if in doing so it causes laws and regulations to be passed saying that such raw material must be disposed of a certain way and wrecks the common man's ability to compost?
Outlandish? Well, never underestimate a government's ability to make rules if someone sees a "reasonable" need for it.....especially if there is money behind it.
Just like waste oil was garbage until people figured out how to make biodiesel out of it. Still would rather make something useful out of it rather than throwing it out.
There is a lot of misunderstanding of facts of the case against corn ethanol. Keep in mind that these studies were funded by big oil. IMO, they are as factually sound as the tobacco companies executives claims of "health benefits" of smoking from a slightly earlier period. Just because it is fad science that everyone accepts doesn't make it true.
Ethanol is made from corn starch. Animals don't digest starch well, it mainly is left in steaming piles on pastures. Food value nutrients are kept and resold as animal feed with byproducts such as B complex from yeast and calcium from purification processes.from fermentation added back in. In other words, it is a naturally enriched animal food product that is more nutritionally complete than the original #2 dent corn that is was made from. Humans don't eat #2 dent, except in limited amounts of corn flour and grits. How much corn flour and grits does your household use in a year?
Third and fourth generation wet mill plants are extremely efficient. Energy numbers from early iterations of a fledgling industry were used and then the data was twisted to claim of the energy used is to solely make ethanol from corn. Products overlooked included corn oil, 21% and 60% feed, maltodextrins, corn starches, corn syrups, in other words, most of the corn. Also overlooked is that the heat energies are used and reused for all the products from corn.
Fructose is sugar. It is treated by your body exactly like a sugar, because that is what it is. Because it is an very inexpensive ingredient to add flavor, food and beverage companies add too much fructose in products. The non-sugar coated truth is if eating or drinking fructose sweetened beverages makes you overweight, don't eat or drink it.
To get back on topic to cellulosic ethanol, after the fermentation, distillations are the same as wet mill corn plants. The infrastructure is in place for immediate change over. What is still preventing its adoption is it's higher energy requirements coupled with poor conversion rates.
Devans0 - What you are saying is most likely true. I have no proof it is true - but I have heard from other people and sources that it is.
Here is the rub and why it competes against food. In very simplistic terms, the not food quality corn starting selling for more than the food quality corn. Therefore the farmers that are growing corn, started growing your #2 Dent corn instead of food quality corn to sell to the ethanol producers. I am assuming that food quality corn can be made into ethanol too as I also heard of them selling corn that meant for human consumption to the ethanol plants as well. (again, it was more money in their pocket).
Now - I don't BLAME the farmer. I am not going to blog here altruistically. I would do the same thing. It's easier to handle and grow ethanol corn than the corn that goes to the grocery store or otherwise becomes "food" and if I can get more money per bushel for it why wouldn't I? I need to put food on my table too. I don't know large scale corn farmers, but I do know enough farmers, as defined by someone that lives by growing plants to harvest food and selling that crop as their only means of income. And for them, it really is feast or famine. Adapt and survive, take advantage of a good thing, because you need to save up for the bad year or years.
AS far as how much corn starch and grits a family eats - apparently you have never been to the Southern US.... I personally do not like grits - but I have sure seen it brought in by truck load.
I have been involved in the development of several energy production projects using renewable resources. Of those, only a LFG project and using low blends biodiesel in big generation assets panned out. We tried to develop a digester gas plant as well as a fluidized bed steam plant using stover and other farm waste as a fuel source. Everything absolutely everything hinges on feed stock / fuel cost. Doesn't mater if its direct energy production or liquid fuel production you have to get "fuel" at a reasonable cost. Typically the more of the local supply of feed stock you use up the further you have to truck it....That equals cost increase to a point it becomes untenable.....I hope it works, I raise my own beef and I like to finish them out on a little corn. That stuff is getting expensive....
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