Iowa's ethanol economy, The Craze for maize

cy

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Ethanol is rapidly transforming life in Iowa and the rest of the corn belt

YOU might think that the opening of a new ethanol facility in Nevada, Iowa—a town of 6,700 in the centre of the state—would be of interest mainly to the local farmers who supply the corn that the factory turns to car fuel. You would be wrong. Investors in the refinery include the person who delivers fuel to it, a couple of local parts-suppliers for John Deere (a big farm-equipment company) and the local school-bus driver, among 900 or so other small investors. Like many others in the corn belt, the Nevada refinery is seen as a way for the whole rural community to thrive by exploiting America's new craving for ethanol and the corn (maize) that is being used to make it.

Corn-based ethanol is neither cheap nor especially green: it requires a lot of energy to produce. Production has been boosted by economically-questionable help from state and federal governments, including subsidies, the promotion of mixing petrol with renewable fuels and a high tariff that keeps out foreign ethanol. The federal government offers ethanol producers a subsidy of 51 cents per gallon (13.5 cents per litre); and a growing number of states are pushing for wider use of E85, a fuel blend that is 85% ethanol and only 15% petrol. Since oil prices rose above $30 a barrel in 2004 (they are more than double that now), ethanol capacity has grown especially rapidly. And although the country is experimenting with other renewable plant-based fuels of varying feasibility, from biodiesel to (much greener) ethanol derived from trees, the biggest boom has been in corn-based ethanol.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9149882

corn.JPG
 

gregpack

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I understand sugar cane is a much more effective crop for ethanol production. Brazil produces a large amount of cane-based ethanol.
 

Diesel_Bomber

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I love it. I wish there was an E85 pump in town, I'd convert my turbo Mr2 to an exclusively E85 vehicle in a heartbeat. Can you say 104 octane? :devil: Better performance and more money staying in the US economy, a win-win situation.

:buddies:
 

jayflash

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Corn was chosen for ethanol conversion because it's politically popular, not because it makes good sense.

Marijuana is already the unofficial #1 cash crop of several states. It's very efficient to grow, the whole plant is usable, with plastics, chemicals and bio diesel available from the seeds.

Huge savings from ceasing the war on drugs would bring more tax relief to the country and no subsidies would be needed. Unfortunately, the government will continue to lie about these facts.
 

jhanko

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I converted my car for E85 last fall and never looked back. I certainly don't miss paying $6/gal for racing fuel. Car is still trapping the same mph and I can pass emmisions with no cat and large cams. This stuff is great!

Jeff
 

TedTheLed

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jay I hear you, but check it out, though the ideal biomass (and lots of other products) plant is hemp, it's a different animal from the marijuana that is smoked for it's THC content. "Industrial hemp" as it is sometimes called has much more cellulose fiber in it than marijuana, and less than a twentieth of the THC content, which makes it pretty much useless for therapeutic smoking..
(only problem might be is if it gets mixed into the high THC crops ;) )
 

ikendu

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Well... I wrote a reply for this topic.

However, it fits on 6 pages single spaced.

We subsidise corn ethanol at 51 cents per gallon. There is testimony before Congress that petroleum costs us about $5/gallon on top of whatever we pay at the pump.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/CopulosTestimony060330.pdf

I'll put my 6 page "monograph" on corn ethanol up on a web site in a few days for those of you that might be interested.
 

cy

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can you direct link to your 6 pages?

ikendu said:
Well... I wrote a reply for this topic.

However, it fits on 6 pages single spaced.

We subsidise corn ethanol at 51 cents per gallon. There is testimony before Congress that petroleum costs us about $5/gallon on top of whatever we pay at the pump.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/CopulosTestimony060330.pdf

I'll put my 6 page "monograph" on corn ethanol up on a web site in a few days for those of you that might be interested.
 

knot

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Hemp vs. Fossil Fuels

Pyrolysis facilities can use the same technology used now to process fossil fuel oil and coal. Petroleum coal and oil conversion is more efficient in terms of fuel-to-feed ratio, but there are many advantages to conversion by pyrolysis.

1) Biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur emissions.

2) Ethanol, methanol, methane gas, and gasoline can be derived from biomass at a fraction of the cost of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy, especially when environmental costs are factored in. Each acre of hemp could yield about 1000 gallons of methanol.

3) When an energy crop is growing, it takes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, and releases an equal amount when it is burned, creating a balanced system, unlike petroleum fuels, which only release CO2. When an energy crop like hemp is grown on a massive scale, it will initially lower the CO2 in the air, and then stabilize it at a level lower than before the planting of the energy crop.

4) Use of biomass would end acid rain, end sulfer-based smog, and reverse the greenhouse effect.

Hemp Produces the Most Biomass of Any Plant on Earth.

Hemp is at least four times richer in biomass/cellulose potential than its nearest rivals: cornstalks, sugarcane, kenaf, trees, etc.

Hemp produces the most biomass of any crop, which is why it is the natural choice for an energy crop. Hemp converts the sun's energy into cellulose faster than any other plant, through photosynthesis. Hemp can produce 10 tons of biomass per acre every four months. Enough energy could be produced on 6% of the land in the U.S. to provide enough energy for our entire country (cars, heat homes, electricity, industry) -- and we use 25% of the world's energy.

To put which in perspective, right now we pay farmers not to grow on 6% (around 90 million acres) of the farming land, while another 500 million acres of marginal farmland lies fallow. This land could be used to grow hemp as an energy crop.
http://www.hemphasis.net/Fuel-Energy/fuel.htm
 
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cy

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WOW... didn't know hemp produces the most bio-mass of any plant on earth.

unfortunately.. it's going to take some major political changes to get it legal to produce. that would be admitting the establishment is wrong... not going to happen real soon.
 

270winchester

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greenlight said:
how will this affect the cost of tortillas?

well, I remember one of the lefty guys in latin America was recently calling America names for trying use more corn-based fuel, on the basis that it reduces the supply for the corn-dependent regions over there.

http://ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2007/03/fidel-castro-blasts-us-biofuel-campaign.html

so USA using oil=imperialist *******s.

USA using ethanol alternative = latin American Baby killers.

boy we just can't win.

personally, oil, corn, suger, whatever, as long as it works and the land can sustain the scale of farming that we may subject it to if we were to convert to alternative fuels.
 
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mudman cj

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Currently, ethanol cannot be derived from cellulose with the same efficiency as from sugars such as fructose in corn. While cellulose can be converted into sugars, the technology is not quite economically viable yet. There are companies pouring millions into developing these methods, many of which rely on specially developed enzymes, and if you believe their public relations folks it's just around the corner. ;)

Even trees would deliver something like 10x the ethanol of corn (by acre or weight? - I have to find the article back that I read a month or so ago), and hemp would apparently surpass that. But as cy pointed out, we won't be using hemp in America without major changes, so I expect other sources of biomass to be the ideal ethanol source of the near future (10 yrs?).

In Iowa it's actually cheaper (usually $0.10 per gallon) to buy 10% ethanol fuel with an octane rating that is +2 over the standard grade. Now I know why our taxes are so high.:rant:

It's funny how the government used to try to get farmers to grow hemp as a patriotic contribution to the war effort, and now it's been criminalized. We can thank Nixon for that.
 

LuxLuthor

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This industry is still in its infancy in terms of all the infrastructure that is needed to get the product from ground to cars. Basically you have to find a way to keep the oil companies making profits, gas stations in business, and find a way to make all the other farmers, labor, politicians able to score a win off making a change on the scale that Brazil has done. I'm all in favor of anything that benefits our heartland farmers, but they don't have as much political clout as competing interests.

Also there are the other energy alternatives (wind, wave, solar, hydrogen, nuclear, voltaic, etc.) that are in the running for various purposes and locations. The best thing about the increasing price of gasoline/oil is the support it builds for better alternatives...and tapping other existing U.S. oil resources (Ocean/Alaska/Shale type reserves).

This is too important of an issue to get it bogged down with a Marajuana debate which has many additional sides and consequences.

I also hope they hurry up and prove the solar flare cycles and cloud formation is the real issue with global warming so we can make objective decisions on fuel sources.
 

IsaacHayes

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Ethanaol reduces your MPG a lot though. For what they sell it here if you do the math you actually are paying more than E10. Even if you don't use it you're paying for it with taxes for them giving incentives so they produce it without a loss. Ethanol loves to absorb water too, not good for engines. It takes energy to produce it too, I wonder how much to produce it?

The cost of corn is going up here because of it. Which is also affecting the cost of eggs and other meats.

I'm not a fan of ethanol. Biodiesel makes more sense to me right now.
 

DM51

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This all sounds a pretty good idea, but if you grow maize for this, what do you do when a whole bunch of Africans complain you're filling up your fuel tanks with their lunch?

Or if you grow hemp instead, what about when there's a big prairie fire and the wind's in the west, so everyone in California gets wasted breathing in the smoke?

OK, so there's no noticeable difference with scenario #2 there, but there may be one or two other political hurdles to overcome with this scheme.
 

jayflash

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Change that benefits the average citizen won't occur until we can have 85% of the eligible voters get active at the polls - as the French just did. That means voting for candidates who are progressive and support legislation good for everyone.

FYI: the Green Party regularly fields highly qualified, non-extremist, candidates who will help protect business prosperity along with the environment. Third Parties and democracies alike, can't survive without a politically active populace willing to try change.
 

binky

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Considering what's been put forward in the previous posts, corn wastes the husks, the huge stalks, the cob, the cellulose on the outside of the kernel, and most of the kernel except the starch that's buried within each teeny kernel.

That was intuitively what I was afraid of.

Just considering what a stalk of corn would extract from the land to grow to full size and the energy to make its fertilizer, water it, etc, it seems like insanity to use corn, not to mention to delimit CORN as the sole source for our ethanol production.

But I imagine we can count on one hand the number of DC politicians who weren't "afraid" of science classes in school. It might just be lobbying money, but I suspect there's something in the ignorance that causes some/many serious problems in legislation.
 
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