Stories tagged ethanol
As Midwest flooding and rising demand for ethanol pushes the price of corn ever higher, Cornell researcher Norman Uphoff is developing a new way to grow rice. His method produces more grain to feed more people; uses less water; and releases less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
Tags : We’ve talked a couple of times before about using corn to produce ethanol, and how this increases the demand for corn and thus the price. Well, now there’s more bad news: the recent flooding in the Midwest is wiping out some farmers’ fields, reducing this year’s corn crop and pushing prices to an all-time high.
The law of unintended consequences: Making ethanol to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is playing havoc with food prices.
Courtesy swankslot
Well, probably neither. But ethanol – a type of fuel made from plants – has been causing a lot of controversy lately. We’ve talked about this here before.
Many people like ethanol. As the price of gasoline rises, ethanol becomes an economical alternative. We can grow it at home, and not have to buy it from foreign countries who may or may not be our friends. And using it as fuel does not add any extra carbon into the atmosphere.
The problem is, most ethanol today is made from food crops, like corn. The more food we turn into ethanol, the less there is to eat. This puts pressure on food prices, as do droughts and growing populations. Food riots have broken out in several countries, and some people are beginning to rethink the push toward ethanol.
(A rather more bleak assessment of the same phenomenon.)
However, not everybody sees this as gloom-and-doom. Here's a spirited defense of biofuels.
Dennis Avery, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues, argues that the push for ethanol is hurting the movement toward sustainable farming.
However, blogger Austin Bay argues that, while rising demand for ethanol is a factor in food prices, it is far from the only one, or even the most important.
A scientific convention right here in Minneapolis agrees, noting that the problem isn’t biofuel per se, but the use of food crops to make biofuel. If we used non-food crops, we would relieve some pressure on food prices. Furthermore, non-food crops like native prairie grass actually make better ethanol than corn does!
Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine, notes the effect of ethanol on food prices, and makes some suggestions for reversing the trend.
Scientists in Tennessee are working on just that, using switchgrass to make ethanol. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Massachusetts are making progress towards turning switchgrass straight into “green gasoline” – a substance chemically identical to gasoline (unlike ethanol, which has some important differences.)
(We’ve discussed switchgrass on Science Buzz before.)
Researchers in Texas are working to make ethanol from sweet sorghum. This would reduce the need to use corn, but sorghum is used in syrup and other sweeteners, so it really wouldn’t solve the food-into-fuel problem.
With the price of gasoline going up, the price of ethanol may be coming down: A new process may lead to low-cost ethanol in the near future.
Courtesy swankslot
Right now, ethanol is expensive to make; the only reason it is priced competitively with gasoline is because the government subsidizes it with tax dollars. General Motors is partnering with Coskata, a biofuel company, to create low-cost ethanol. The new process uses micro-organisms to turn just about any carbon-based material into ethanol, including switchgrass and agricultural waste. Not only will this make ethanol cheaper, but it will also reduce the use of grains to make ethanol when they could be used to make food.
Most ethanol is currently made from corn. Scientists in Europe are worried that increasing production for ethanol will increase the demand for the crop, thus leading cut down forests to plant more corn. This would have a greater negative impact on the global climate than any positive impact from using ethanol instead of gasoline.
Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Minnesota and some place called "Princeton" have learned that converting forests and prairies into farmlands to grow corn actually releases carbon into the atmosphere, far more than is saved by replacing gas with ethanol.
OTOH, this author claims there is no evidence that forests and prairies are being converted to farm land. Rather, the demand for corn is being met by more efficient farming. He also argues that ethanol is cost-efficient and does not lead to higher food prices.
Large scale study shows 540% net energy gain when ethanol is produced from switchgrass
Panicum Vergatum: Switchgrass
Courtesy U S Govt
Kenneth Vogel, a geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Lincoln, Nebraska, and his colleagues, found that ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol.
Their results, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that switchgrass, farmed using conventional agricultural practices on less-than-prime cropland yields only slightly less ethanol per hectare on average than corn.
Farmers planted switchgrass on 10 farms, each of which was between 3 and 9 hectares. They then tracked the inputs they used--diesel for farm equipment and transporting the harvested grasses, for example--as well as the amount of grass they raised over a 5-year period. ScienceNOW Daily News
Switchgrass monoculture or mixed prairie grasses?
Anyone remember our Buzz post "Chalk one up for diversity"? David Tilman in that post is quoted saying, "diverse prairie grasslands are 240 percent more productive than grasslands with a single prairie species"
Now I read:
... Vogel says, is that yields on farms using fertilizer and other inputs, such as herbicides and diesel fuel for farm machinery, were as much as six times higher than yields on farms that used little or no fertilizer, herbicides, or other inputs to grow a mixture of native prairie grasses. ScienceNOW Daily News
Who is right? Can anyone explain why two reputable researchers are getting such different results?
The fuel of the future?: Termite guts break down cellulose into a form that could be used for fuel.
Courtesy Velo Steve
Scientists for the US Department of Energy are studying termites in hopes of developing new sources of fuel.
Termites eat wood. Wood is made of a tough material called cellulose. There’s an awful lot of cellulose in the world, and its easy to grow, making it an ideal raw material for making ethanol. Except – it’s really, really hard to turn cellulose into ethane (natural gas). It’s much easier to make ethanol out of food crops like corn – but that creates problems of its own.
Termites, however, have microbes in their stomachs which break down cellulose quickly and efficiently, as anyone who’s ever had a termite infestation in their house knows. Scientists hope to figure out how the microbes do their job, and then duplicate the process to help fill the nation’s energy needs.
The incomparable Cecil Adams weighs in with his thoughts on cellulose-based ethanol.
Corn, the real enemy: The demand for corn to make ethanol is pushing up the price of many food items, including ice cream. Photo by frascelly at flickr.com
Most ethanol is made from corn.
As the demand for corn goes up, the price goes up, too.
Dairies buy corn to feed their milk cows.
As the price of corn goes up, dairies must raise the price of milk to keep even.
And what essential, life-sustaining product is made from milk?
ICE CREAM, PEOPLE!
The demand for ethanol is forcing up the cost of ice cream!
The terrible irony of all this is that ethanol is promoted as a renewable, alternative fuel, one that will reduce pollution and carbon emissions and thus help combat global warming. Yet, its production is harming the one known proven antidote to blazing temperatures – ice cream!
Our way of life, our very existence is at stake here.
Fortunately, science comes to the rescue. Researchers in Georgia are building the first cellulosic ethanol plant, which will make ethanol from plant waste (like lawn clippings and switch grass) rather than from food crops.
It may not save the planet, but if it saves ice cream, that will be a good first step.
The demand for corn to make ethanol is pushing up the price of many food items, including ice cream. Photo by frascelly at flickr.com
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
Well, well. It’s happened again.
Members of the so-called “scientific community” have molted from their crusty pupae and emerged as the wriggling little thieves and plagiarists I’ve always known them to be.
I’m sure this sounds a little bit harsh, and it is, but deservedly so, for the crime committed is most egregious. Let me explain, and I think you will agree…
The solution to all transportation fuel problems.: This man somehow got into my head and stole my idea. Possibly metaphorically. (photo by Richard Faverty, permission for use granted by Bob Arno)
A team based out of the University if Wisconsin-Madison has recently announced its “discovery” of a two-stage process for turning the sugar fructose into “a liquid transportation fuel with 40 percent greater energy density than ethanol.” The first set of quotation marks here are for irony, the next are meant to give credit where credit is due, something often overlooked among certain scientists.
We are all aware of the increasing focus being placed on renewable fuels, especially those for transportation. Ethanol is currently the only one being produced on a very large scale, and it is not without problems. Ethanol contains relatively little energy compared to fossil fuels, it evaporates quickly, and it readily absorbs water from the atmosphere, which must be separated from the fuel through an energy intensive process before it can be used.
DMF, the fructose-derived fuel, is not water-soluble, it is stable in storage, and it costs less energy to produce. The article I read also seems to suggest that DMF is carbon-neutral (that us to say, it doesn’t contribute to the global warming CO2 in the atmosphere), but I’m not sure that this is accurate.
DMF itself is not new, but the process developed at UW is. Using acid and copper catalysts, and salt and butanol as a solvent, the new process is much more effective at deriving the DMF than previous methods, adding to its potential as a commercial fuel.
This all sounds great to you, I’m sure, but I think we should get back to the real meat of this story: shameless thievery.
Every night I dream about falling asleep on a silk bed that floats in a pool of some kind of liquid gold (not real liquid gold, though, because that would probably burn the bed). The means of achieving this dream I have always kept secret, until now, when it seems there is no more point to it: converting simple sugars to pure energy. My novel method is only slightly different than that of the UW “scientists.” Using seven and eight-year catalysts, and five and six-year-old solvents, I could solve the world’s transportation problems.
The children - with the consent of their parents, of course - would be given fructose rich fruit-flavored drinks, or bowls of pure sugar (also fructose rich), and then harnessed to cars. Cars with empty gas tanks! The fired-up kids would tow the vehicles! Current production model cars could use the new technology with only minor adjustments (although larger vehicles would require a greater child-power rating to reach optimal speeds – somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 mph). The control interface would be entirely voice activated – I’m thinking something like “If you don’t get me to the mall by the time I count to three, you will be in so much trouble, JGordon! One… Two… Two and a half…” And you’re off!
It could have been win-win-win! The kids would have gotten the sugar they want so badly (as well as healthy exercise), drivers would have had plenty of fun, and I would have been rich, rich as Reagan. But no. My genius idea has been stolen, stolen and perverted to the point where I want nothing more to do with it. Oh well.
A side thought – as I understand it, one of the problems with ethanol can be growing plants that efficiently produce carbohydrates. Corn, obviously, is the main candidate around here, but I guess sugar cane is one of the best things to use (Brazil makes tons of ethanol, and they use sugar cane). These crops, however, can be pretty rough on the land, and the various steps in farming and harvesting can create a fair amount of pollution. I wonder if producing the fructose needed for DMF could be similarly problematic.
There are some issues here that aren’t generally what we think about in association with fuel production. Anyone know more about this?
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