It’s Time To “Buck” Up And Implement Bacteria Biofuel Solution

As syngas fermentation leads to lower ethanol concentrations than corn fermentations, the energy and cost to separate the ethanol from water is proportionally higher. To reduce this differential, Coskata has exclusively licensed membrane separation technology to reduce the energy requirements by over 50%. The vapor permeation process is amenable to separating ethanol from biofermentation broth because of the very low solids content of the broth relative to other fermentation processes. Image Credit: Coskata

It’s Time To “Buck” Up And Implement Bacteria Biofuel Solution

There was a time one could buy fuel for ones car or truck for a “Buck” a gallon … and it is a past we can embrace right now … TODAY!

Well, at least General Motors seems to think so with its investment in Biofuel processing startup Coskata.

The key to the conversion approach Coskata has perfected uses bacteria to break down the broad array of organic waste (switch grasses, twigs, corn husks, leaves, landscape waste, and other non-food sources of organic material) and make Ethanol for a fuel mix or replacement.

After the carbon-hydrogen bonds in the feedstock are "cracked" using gasification and converted into syngas, bacterial fermentation (biofermentation) of the syngas into ethanol occurs using proprietary Coskata microorganisms. Image Credit: Coskata

The real kicker is that this process not only protects our current food paradigm built upon corn for feed and food, the process uses far less petroleum fuel (about 13% as opposed to 77% - or 17 times more efficient) and water while greatly increasing the productive output per bale of feedstock in order to create a gallon of this cleaner burning substance.

Design engineer Mike Sura adjusts settings on Coskata's 150L bioreactor to make ethanol. Image Credit: Tyler Mallory/General Motors

This excerpted from WIRED -

Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn
By Chuck Squatriglia - 01.24.08 1:00 PM

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

"It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.

The discovery underscores the rapid innovation under way in the race to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply. With the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost five-fold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022, scientists are working quickly to reach that breakthrough.
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Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company.

Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. Still, several experts said Coskata shows enough promise to leave them cautiously optimistic.
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Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol, Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol. Richard Tobey, Coskata's vice president of engineering, says the process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.

Image Credit: Coskata

Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol, but biofuel experts said Coskata is the first to combine them. Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.
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Coskata's method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and requires far less water, heat and pressure. Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, the company said. Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
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May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.
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Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it. But the company's method solves that problem because ethanol could be made locally from whatever feedstock is available, Tobey said.

"You're not bound by location," he said. "If you're in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass."
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"Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said. "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."
Reference Here>>

The Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University - Alternative Engergy
(click image to launch video)

The biofuel developed for ASU's "Tubes in the Desert" project avoids many of the downsides presented by biofuels such as corn, cellulose or other crops/plants. Because it uses a microscopic bacteria as the fuel source, it doesn't compete with food crops and could yield a much larger amount of fuel per acre. The bacteria are grown in transparent tubes, hence the name. /// ASU researchers are also exploring the possibilities of microbial fuel cells -- tiny microbes that generate energy by feeding on waste. /// Guest interviews include: Neal Woodbury, Ph.D., the Biodesign Institute; Wim Vermaas, Professor, ASU School of Life Sciences. /// Learn More: Visit http://www.azpbs.org/asuspotlight

E85 Ethanol Powers To New Land Speed Record

Record Setting Viper: The car's owner, entrepreneur Karl Jacob, says it was built with the purpose of demonstrating that "going green needn't mean going slow." Prior to the record run, Karl's Viper had already held the standing-mile record for a bio-fuel powered street car at 189 mph. Image Credit: Karl Jacob - Motor Trend / Caption Credit: Kirill Ougarov - Motor Trend

E85 Ethanol Powers To New Land Speed Record

We, at MAXINE, assume that this record is meant for a catagory that would exclude automobiles that run on pure Ethanol such are the cars that race in the IRL and Champ Car open-wheel automobile racing series.

Next year, however, the IRL will be switching to E85 and then the record would be shattered because an IRL "IndyCar" can eaisly go from "0" to "100" MPH (and back to "0" again) in the total time of 27.41 seconds it took this souped-up Viper to achieve just "0" to "100"!

This from Motor Trend Community -

Ethanol-powered Viper runs to standing-mile record
Posted 7-16-2007 11:13 AM by Kirill Ougarov

The world standing-mile record in a street car now belongs to a 1200-horsepower Dodge Viper running on E85 ethanol. The car, tuned by Chicago-based SVS, reached a top speed of 220.7 mph during a 27.41-second run at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport in Oscoda, Michigan. The previous record was 217.85 mph in a gasoline-powered car.

The project started out with the addition of twin turbochargers to a stock Viper to bring the car's output to 700 horsepower, with the decision to switch to E85 made a couple months later. The car's entire fuel system had to be reworked for compatibility with E85, with extensive modifications to the driveline including new engine internals, a race-prepared transmission, and a new differential to allow the car to develop and handle power outputs north of 1000 horses.
Reference Here>>

This YouTube E85 Viper run appears to have taken place either at the Mojave Airport where famed aircraft designer and areo record holder, Dick Ruttan has set up his company to couquer space or the former George Air Force Base near Adelanto.

April 14, 2007: "See the E85 Viper set the world record for a streetable biofuel car in the standing mile"

The "Other White Meat" Of Fuel

Phill - The world's first appliance that lets you refuel your Natural Gas Vehicle indoors or outdoors from your household natural gas line! - Image Credit: FuelMaker Corporation

The "Other White Meat" Of Automobile Fuel

That's right, there is another fuel alternative that would allow all of us to become less dependent on foreign sources for fuel in our automobiles and this one gets very little respect.

Just as in Pork having to advertise that it is the other white meat in order to get attention … Natural Gas should launch a similar campaign.

Almost everyone is aware of E85 Ethanol as THE fuel alternative of the future, but Natural Gas should also be considered into the calculation. It's cheap, it's plentiful, it's produced locally, and the infrastructure is almost all in place for those who do not mind a little planning.

For example, only three E85 re-fueling stations exist in California (and only one of those is available to the general public) whereas there are over 200 Natural Gas stations open for general public use with another 50 under construction.

And now, with "Phill" in you garage, you will have a Natural Gas station to get any trip started.

Excerpts from USA TODAY -

Natural-gas powered cars: Who even knows they exist?
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY - LOS ANGELES

Imagine paying as little as $1.25 a gallon to run your car.

Not for gasoline. Instead, you would pump a fuel that's readily available, North American-produced and virtually pollution-free. Many motorists could even fill up in their own garages every night just like they would power-up with one of the gas-electric plug-in hybrids still under development.

Now, what if this magical car were available today, and no one cared. Not government officials. Not auto executives. Not consumers. Not even some environmentalists.

Therein lies the paradox of the natural-gas powered car. Most major automakers offered them in the 1990s, primarily for government and corporate fleets. Back then, smog was the chief national concern. Yet today, when natural gas offers a common-sense, immediate and ecological relief valve to the nation's dependence on foreign oil, only one major automaker still makes a production model — and sales stink.

Only about 1,000 of the more than 300,000 Civic subcompacts that Honda (HMC) sells every year in the USA are the natural-gas GX version. Most still go to corporate or government fleets. Consumers can buy them only through select dealers in California and New York.

Some natural-gas proponents quietly seethe. They feel natural gas is being overlooked for cars, pickups and SUVs at a time when the nation's energy supply is dwindling and gasoline prices stair-step ever upward.

"It's like shouting in the wind sometimes," says Ron Cogan, publisher of the Green Car Journal and a big believer in natural gas. "It seems crazy we are not exploring more natural-gas vehicles, because the technology is here."

Natural-gas cars have some significant drawbacks. There aren't enough stations selling natural gas to make them practical for cross-country drives. They don't have as much driving range as gasoline-powered cars. And their fuel tanks take up more space in the trunk of the cars.

But every alternative-energy vehicle has disadvantages.
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Ethanol vs. natural gas for cars

E85 is backed in farm states because its 85% ethanol content is made from corn. But ethanol is heavily subsidized by the government. And it, too, is available at a limited number of stations — 1,200 at present — mostly in the Midwest. Ethanol's growing popularity threatens to drive up food prices even as farmers finish planting the most acreage in corn since 1944.

Automakers and government agencies are pouring billions into development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. But ironically, the vast majority of hydrogen made in the USA right now is derived from converting natural gas.

Advocates call compressed natural gas, or CNG for short, one of the nation's best-kept secrets when it comes to powering cars. "It bugs the hell out of me" that more isn't being done to get the word out, says Mike Eaves of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition.

Natural gas is:

•Cheap. In Los Angeles this week, one chain was charging $2.55 for the natural-gas equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. By comparison, self-serve regular gasoline was hitting records, averaging $3.49 a gallon Tuesday in L.A. and California as a whole, said AAA's daily Fuel Gauge Report. California currently has the nation's highest fuel prices.

Steve Ellis, alternative fuels manager for Honda's U.S. operation, says he has never heard of an instance in which natural-gas prices exceeded those of gasoline.

With a home unit made by a company called FuelMaker, refilling a car overnight from a home's own natural-gas supply can drop the price even more. In California right now, the price equates to about $1.25 in natural gas for the equivalent gallon of gasoline.

The home unit, called Phill, mounts on a garage wall and is about the size of an old pay telephone. It costs about $3,900, but is eligible for a $1,000 federal tax credit and, at least in Southern California, another $2,000 in local incentives.

Honda GX starts at $24,590 and is eligible for a $4,000 federal tax credit. It compares feature-wise to a midlevel, gasoline-powered $17,760 Civic LX. The 2007 natural-gas GX is government rated at 28 miles a gallon in the city, 39 on the highway.
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•Plentiful. While natural gas isn't renewable like ethanol, there's lots of it. Reserves point to at least a 60-year supply, says the Natural Gas Supply Association. Only 56% of crude oil for U.S. refineries comes from North America, compared with 98% of the natural gas consumed. About half of all American homes are equipped for natural gas.

•Environmentally friendly. Natural gas creates so few emissions that Civic GX is the cleanest internal-combustion powered car on the road. It's greener than a Toyota Prius gasoline-electric hybrid and tied with the Civic hybrid, according to the Energy Department rankings for 2007 models.

Prius and the two Civics are the only vehicles clean enough to qualify for stickers that allow solo drivers to take them in California's car pool lanes. But the allotment of stickers has run out for the hybrids. Only Civic GX can still receive one.

Ellis says that on a smoggy day, the GX's exhaust is cleaner than the polluted air its engine sucks in. Natural gas is more than 20% better for carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for climate change, than comparable gasoline engines.

•Ready to go. Other major automakers sell natural-gas-powered cars in Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere, just not in the USA. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner mentioned natural gas at a Switzerland auto show in March as one of the alternative fuels the automaker has intensified efforts to develop for foreign markets.

About 1,500 fueling stations nationwide
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Natural gas is held back by the limited but growing number of fueling stations. Nationwide, there are about 1,500 natural-gas vehicle stations, about half of which sell to the public.
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The auto industry's past interest was driven primarily by the need to try to fulfill government requirements at the time designed to spur development of clean alternative energy. Automakers saw interest fall apart when rules were modified to allow government fleet operators to switch from natural gas to flex-fuel vehicles, which burn either E85 ethanol or regular gasoline.

Ford Motor (F) phased out natural gas pickups and vans after the 2004 model year, but it still does after-sales CNG conversions in India. GM (GM) stopped sales in the USA as well.

"The (sales) volume went down every year," GM spokeswoman Nancy Libby says. "Even when Ford and Chrysler stopped making natural-gas vehicles before us, it didn't change that fact."

That was before the advent of home fueling. It was also ahead of the soaring gasoline prices of the last couple of years and President Bush's call for a 20% reduction in gasoline use.
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"CNG faces the same challenges as hydrogen but without the benefits of zero emissions," says DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa. Chrysler stopped making natural-gas-powered cars for U.S. sales in 1996 and has no immediate plans to sell hydrogen-powered vehicles, still in development.
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Honda deserves credit for continuing to market a natural-gas car, says Tim Carmichael, president of the Coalition for Clean Air, a California environmental-advocacy group. But consumers are still largely unaware of it, and the heavy-vehicle market holds more potential. Even a major oil executive whose company is involved in natural gas isn't enthusiastic. "It's going to require some sort of incentive before people go for it," says Shell Oil President John Hofmeister.

It didn't require much of an incentive, however, for 2003 Civic GX owner Jeff Church, 51, an airline pilot who lives in San Dimas, Calif. He says his natural-gas car, which he has driven about 53,000 miles, saves him a bundle. He estimates his home fueling unit delivers natural gas as cheap as 98 cents a gallon. The even bigger incentive is his car pool lane sticker, which allows him save 15 to 50 minutes zipping 42 miles from home to work at Los Angeles International Airport.

"For a lot of miles, it's the ideal vehicle," he says.
Read All>>

Brazil On Collision Course: Ethanol & Environment

Deforestation in Brazil: This image of the southern Amazon uses satellite data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite collected in 2000 and 2001 to classify the terrain into three separate land surface categories: forest (red), herbaceous (non-woody) vegetation like grasses (green), and bare ground (blue). The Amazon’s numerous rivers appear white. Image Credit: Mongabay.com

Brazil On Collision Course: Ethanol & Environment

Ethanol production, "the renewable fuel resource", requires fiber (lots of fibre) and water (lots of water) to become the bio-replacement fuel of the future. If Brazil has its way, it plans to expand its capacity to produce Ethanol by 12 times over the next eighteen years and eclipse all other nations ability to supply the world demand for energy based on something other than petroleum.

This expansion is expected to place additional stresses on the ecosystems that surround the populated portions of Brazil. The decades old practice of slash & burn clear-cutting of the forests may now come full circle to slash & convert putting any vegetation on the production line for Ethanol.

Wither the land is cleared for sugarcane or just being cleared for the fibre due to advances in technology to convert more types of fibre ... rain forests are at a greater risk over the next 20 years.

Excerpts from Tierramérica via Inter Press Service News Agency -

Brazil Aims to Dominate World Ethanol Market
Mario Osava - Tierramérica network (Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 31 (Tierramérica) - Brazil is working towards producing enough ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline consumed worldwide within 18 years. That would mean increasing its current production of 17.3 billion litres a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests, protected areas or food cultivation.

The government called on a group of experts to study the possibilities and impacts of a sharp increase in fuel alcohol production from sugarcane.

The group led by the Interdisciplinary Group for Energy Planning of Campinas University, and coordinated by physicist Rogério Cerqueira Leite, concluded that Brazil could produce 205 billion litres of ethanol by 2025. A comparable volume will be produced by the rest of the world, predict experts.
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Increased ethanol production is essential. The experts' report says there will be a 40-percent hike in output per hectare of sugarcane through a new technology based on hydrolysis. The United States and Brazil agreed to cooperate in developing this approach during the Mar. 8-9 visit by President George W. Bush in Sao Paulo.

Potentially, hydrolysis, which can take advantage of any cellulose material, could double productivity, but the goal was set at 40 percent based on known technologies and because part of the sugarcane waste (pulp and straw) is used in generating electricity, not ethanol, explained Carlos Rossell, a researcher with the group.

Rainforest cleared for maize - Location: Puerto Maldanado - Image Credit: Mongabay.com

This technology involves some complicated challenges, such as breaking down very tough plant structures, which will require a great deal of effort to make it viable on an industrial scale, Rossell told Tierramérica.

U.S. and European scientists are farther along in this research and benefit from much bigger investments, but Brazil has the advantage of the immediate availability of the sugarcane, ready to be processed. The others will have to go into the fields to bring in the stalks and other bio-material, mostly from maize, with additional costs, he said.

For the same reason, the expertise that can come from the United States, whose ethanol production is based on corn, doesn't resolve the Brazilian problem. The raw materials are different, the researcher said.
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For now, the United States produces a little more ethanol than Brazil does, but production costs are 40 percent higher, according to industry leaders in Brazil. The U.S. tariff barrier of 54 cents on the dollar per gallon (3.8 litres) did not prevent the northern giant from importing 1.6 billion litres of Brazilian fuel alcohol last year, when increased demand drove up maize prices.

In addition to destabilising the international market, increasing maize prices and soybean prices (the former's replacement for animal feed), U.S. ethanol is hardly environmentally efficient.

Each unit of energy used in U.S. ethanol production generates just 1.3 to 1.8 units of renewable energy, while sugarcane reaches a minimum of 8.3 units. As such, U.S.-produced ethanol does little to curb emissions that cause climate change, which, along with high-priced petroleum are the main reasons biofuels are being promoted.

In Brazil, ethanol also faces limitations. Peasant farmer movements and many social activists condemn the growth of agro-energy that hurts food production. Environmentalists fear further expansion of the farm frontier into Amazon forests, especially as land prices increase.

Fuel alcohol production has "negative environmental, social and economic impacts for the communities," it generates few jobs, and "consumes a lot of natural resources -- each litre of ethanol requires 30 litres of water," criticises Temístocles Marcelos, environmental policy director at the labour union CUT.

Virtually all forest clearing, by small farmer and plantation owner alike, is done by fire. Though these fires are intended to burn only limited areas, they frequently escape agricultural plots and pastures and char pristine rainforest. Image Credit: Mongabay.com
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The experts' study, however, points to the creation of five million new jobs if the ambitious production plan is implemented.
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In Sao Paulo state, home to more than half of Brazil's ethanol production, 60 percent of the sugarcane fields are burned in order to facilitate cutting, polluting the air and causing a number of illnesses. The sugarcane industrialists are also accused of subjecting their workers to unhealthy and exhausting work conditions, which, according to reports, have also led to death.
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The burns are also legal, and are to be abolished by 2020, he said. The solution would be accelerated if cellulose ethanol production were further advanced, because it uses sugarcane leaves.

Furthermore, ethanol benefits all of humanity by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Its incorporation into Brazil's national energy matrix and its international marketing -- which should be unrelated to that of petroleum -- "depends only on political will," said Ribeiro.
Read All>>

Cruising On Corn E85 – Not A Smooth Ride

Dan Kallal of rural Chesterfield in Macoupin County, who co-owns and operates Kallal Brothers Inc., where they raise grain and livestock, holds a 6-week-old crossbred pig. Image Credit: The Telegraph/MARGIE M. BARNES

Cruising On Corn E85 – Not A Smooth Ride

The average vehicle driving American would dearly love to be able to do their level best to reduce our dependence on oil and the geopolitical pressures its use presents our country.

It would be nice that ALL cars were FlexFuel capable (able to use both gasoline and E85 for ease of transition to the use of renewable biofuel) and every fuel station provided an E85 fuel pump.

The average city living American, however, may be uninformed as to how difficult a proposition this switch can be. Many believe that all we have to do is “just do it” and everything will be fine – but this pursuit of reduced dependence on fossil fuels has its domino effect on the infrastructures that are already dependent on the easy cellular-fiber sources that exist.

Further, it takes energy to convert fiber to fuel so the question has to be asked, is this move to E85 really economically feasible?

Excerpts from The Telegraph (Alton, Illinois), originally published in two parts -

1) Ethanol demands send farmers scrambling & 2) Ethanol push has livestock producers worried
Becoming less reliant on foreign oil has become the favorite sound bite for politicians.
By MAGGIE BORMAN - The Telegraph - 02/26/2007

From the president to the governor, leaders are putting taxpayer money where their mouths are, subsidizing production of ethanol from the heartland's golden corn crop.

Ethanol, the colorless, flammable liquid produced by the fermentation of sugars from corn and other plants, puts the kick in alcoholic beverages, the pop in popcorn and is used in foods from cereal to soda pop.

Most of the ethanol used as a gasoline additive in the U.S. comes from corn grown in a few Midwest states known as the Corn Belt. Illinois is the nation's No. 2 ethanol producer and the No. 2 biodiesel producer.

In 2007, Illinois' 10 ethanol plants will produce more than one billion gallons, and three biodiesel plants will produce more than 120 million gallons.

The governor has supported a rapid expansion of the E85 infrastructure.
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The governor's plan, among other things, would invest $25 million to help build five biodiesel plants, boosting the state's production by 200 percent to 400 million gallons per year, or the equivalent of 25 percent of the state's annual diesel fuel needs by 2017.

Although his means of financing are far from clear, Blagojevich wants to invest $100 million over the next five years to build up to 20 ethanol plants across Illinois, with an additional $100 million over the next 10 years to build four plants in Downstate Illinois using new technology to create ethanol from plant waste materials such as corn husks and wood pulp.
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Ethanol has many supposed benefits - weaning Americans off foreign oil, increasing local industry and jobs, reducing global warming and aiding grain producers, among them.

But many people question the validity of the rush to subsidize the ethanol industry. They want to know if America has the ability to produce enough ethanol to become totally foreign-oil free. Ethanol is placing, in particular, a lot of burden on corn supplies, which affects livestock producers, world food banks and corn food products.

Where will all the corn come from?

In December, Chuck Hartke, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said Illinois produced about 1.7 billion bushels of corn last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's year-end statistics released last week estimated the 2006 corn production at 10.5 billion bushels, the third largest on record, but still a 5 percent decrease from 2005.

More than 70 million acres of corn were planted for grain production. Corn acres are expected to increase dramatically this year, due in large part to the rapid increase in fuel ethanol production capacity.

The U.S. ethanol industry has a capacity to produce about 5 billion gallons per year, but more than 4.5 billion gallons of capacity is under construction, according to Ethanol Producer Magazine. The USDA planting estimate for this year forecasts an increase in the range of seven million to 10 million acres of corn.

"Currently we are using about 400 million bushels of corn to produce ethanol in Illinois, and by the end of 2008 we should be consuming close to a billion bushels to produce ethanol," Hartke told the Chicago Tribune in December.
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Here is an easy formula to remember: 1 ton of corn equals 39.4 bushels, which equals 110 gallons of ethanol.
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All this would increase the corn needed for distilleries to 139 million tons, Brown said. This would yield nearly 15 billion gallons of ethanol, satisfying only 6 percent of U.S. auto fuel needs (this estimate does not include any plants started after June 30 that would come online in time to draw on the 2008 harvest).

At the end of January, the Illinois Farm Bureau said Illinois farmers might expand corn production acres by at least 9 percent over the 2006 levels, according to a survey conducted at the Corn and Soybean Classic meetings around the state. If realized, Illinois farmers would plant about 12.6 million acres in corn this spring - the highest corn acreage since records began in 1866.
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Ethanol push has livestock producers worried

No one questions the need to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. But pushing ethanol as the solution has people like pig farmer Ken Doyle worried.

Doyle, who runs Hickory Grove Pork Farm between Carlinville and Gillespie, said production of ethanol stands to deplete the corn stock that livestock farmers count on to feed the animals that feed much of the world.

"Those of us that are well-fed and warm at night don’t consider the impact an increase in feed prices will have globally," Doyle said. "That is a rather sobering aspect of this that the press isn’t covering. Right now we have all these politicians beating on their chests speaking about how wonderful it is to have alternative energy, but there is a downside for the hungry of the world that is quite frightening."

Controversy remains over the use of America’s fertile cornfields as the best and most economical means to replace gasoline. The demands are having an impact on livestock producers, consumer food prices, exports and world food banks.

While ethanol-related industries and the National Corn Growers Association have asserted that corn-guzzling ethanol demands outlined under President George Bush’s energy plan can be done, even the president recognizes it may be difficult to meet his goal of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012.

"Ethanol produced today comes from corn, and we’ve got hog growers and chicken growers that need corn to feed their animals," Bush said while speaking at a DuPont plant in Delaware last month. "Therefore it’s going to be kind of a strain at some point in time on the capacity for us to have enough ethanol to make us less dependent on oil."
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Steve Ring, general manager of Hog Inc. in Greenfield, a Greene County-based cooperative composed of about 100 pork producers whose principal business is the manufacture of feed for hogs, said many pork producers were not counting on how quickly the market would respond to the ethanol boom.

"We are facing a new dilemma. In 2006, the country raised the third-largest corn crop in history. Because of the current and projected demand from the ethanol industry, corn prices are the highest they have been in 10 years," Ring said.

In October 2005, Ring said the average his cooperative paid for corn was $1.65 a bushel. In October 2006, the price averaged $2.85, and in December 2006, the average was $3.65. The price as of Jan. 26 was $3.78.

"So our price of corn has jumped 72.7 percent from October 2005 to October 2006. It jumped 121 percent from October 2005 to December 2006, and 129 percent (on Jan. 26)," Ring said. "That is one heck of a change in a short period of time."
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It takes about 10 bushels of corn to raise and finish a hog to market. Utilizing the current price of corn, it represents an increase of $21.30 per hog, Ring said, noting that most other ingredients have also increased.
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Ring said Hog Inc. has had a few hog producers that have already discussed dropping their hog operations and only raising grain. If hog producers have older buildings, for example, that need to be replaced within a few years, "it is difficult for them to pencil out a profit with current corn prices that may well increase."

"As the ethanol industry grows, it will require more corn," Ring said. "While there is talk out of Washington about cellulose crops (another means of ethanol production), the technology for corn and the tax incentives will keep pressure on to grow corn-based ethanol."

The ethanol industry has a 51-cent-per-gallon tax advantage while the livestock industry has no tax incentives.
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"I have read several reports that estimate the ethanol industry can pay $4.05 per bushel for corn when crude oil is $50 per barrel. The higher crude oil goes, the more the ethanol industry can afford to pay," Ring said.

Ring supports the use of ethanol and less reliance on foreign oil. He owns a flex-fuel vehicle and purchases E85 on a regular basis.
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Ring’s final concern is the impact corn-based ethanol would have on U.S. consumer food product costs and corn for export to the world’s hungry.

"My sincere hope is that legislators will have an open discussion on the positive and negative aspects of an aggressive expansion of the ethanol industry.
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Dan Kallal, who lives in the rural area outside the Macoupin County town of Chesterfield, and his brother, Dave, own and operate Kallal Brothers Inc., where they raise grain and livestock.
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"We are shifting to growing as much corn as we can, as price will be a factor if we have to buy corn," Dan Kallal said. "Feed costs are about 60 to 70 percent of our production cost so if we have to buy $4 corn, it will definitely affect us."

Kallal said the demand for corn-based ethanol production would have a global effect as well; there won’t be as much corn meal to donate to the World Food Bank for other countries, nor will there be enough corn for export.

"It is a global market, and if we are competitive we can export; if we aren’t, someone else will pick up the market."

Doyle, who along with his family runs the Hickory Grove Pork Farm, a farrow-to-finish swine facility that includes a breeding herd and a market herd, said his farm purchases all of its corn.

"Feed costs are about 60 percent of our operation and it takes about 10 bushels of corn to create a market weight," Doyle said. "With a dollar and a half increase on corn it equates to about $15 per pig increase."
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"The outlook for our industry in 2007 is not positive. When you are dealing with a global economy, this doesn’t just affect our operation but every operation in the world," Doyle said. "In a world market, it is demand for feed grains -- not just corn -- that has gone up."

The price of feed grains in time will affect the cereal, dairy, eggs, beef and pork products Doyle said, as well as the World Food Program, which feeds more hungry people than any other agency.
References Here & Here>>