Oh god not this again.

If I've said it once I've said it a million times.

Ethanol isn't a fuel policy its a farm subsidy policy.

It makes plenty sense to effectively strip the sugars from corn production to make ethanol when you're left with the protein feed for livestock.

And since the bulk of all corn produced in the US was (historically) used for livestock feed it made sense to "skim off" the ethanol. The effective energy return is much higher because the farming "system" as a whole doesn't use any extra energy, and for the cost of a little Nat Gas (at the distillery) you get a bit of ethanol which could be used locally as an oxygenate in farm state fuel.

What doesn't make any sense is to mandate that the US makes trillions of gallons of the stuff at any cost to blend into gasoline regardless of the cost. That would be silly.

But then silly never stopped US legislators before.....

Andy

"Mama don't take my Post Toasties away"

Sounds kind of corny but we certainly do have a dilemma on our hands. FOOD VS FUEL

"and you can't have one without the other" .....as in love and marriage.

A big thank you to all who contribute to TOD for your time and effort. I am a follower of TOD on a daily basis.........it is a sort of guiding light.

I'm a believer

R Jerome from Phoenix

when you're left with the protein feed for livestock.

Don't forget you can get a fungal bloom and the release of sprouting inhibitors if you use the DDG and a herbicide.

http://www.communitysolution.org/04conf/af1.html

So the dry distillers' grains is a pre-emergent herbicide, in other words it stops weed seeds from sprouting. As soon as they sprout, they die. That's because what I've done by putting this stuff in the soil is I've fed seed-eating fungi and bacteria.

Andy,

So if there's plenty of corn product left after stripping out the alcohol, then why are the livestock feeders freaking out about the shortage of corn?

Why has the price of feed even gone up for them?

Corn gluten is a poor food additive for cattle. Perhaps it can be useful for poultry in small quantities, but the price of DDG has gone down since the rise of ethanol. Perhaps McDonald's will invent a burger-like substance from DDGs which can be deep fried, sweetened and salted, then sold to obese human beings.

As a midwestern pork producer faced head on with a doubling of corn price in six months, I can tell you that there will be reduced meat protein in grocery stores. One 56# bushel of corn yeilds 17# of dry distillers grains. Pigs and chickens can effectively utilize small quantities of DDGS in the diet (about 10-20%). Beef can and are using 40-50%, and can theoretically utilize 100%. before the ethanol boom DDGS delivered was about $200/ton, today it's about $140. Another consideration is the plants eventual use of distillers grain to fuel the plant.

http://www.physorg.com/news78508751.html

The technology involves partial combustion of biomass – that could include corn stalks, distillers grains, waste wood or other biorenewables – to produce a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and other flammable gases. The resulting mixture is known as producer gas and it can replace natural gas in an ethanol plant's heaters. The producer gas can also be upgraded to what's known as syngas, a mixture that can be converted into high-value transportation fuels, alcohols, hydrogen, ammonia and other chemicals.

Producer gas is made by injecting biomass into a fluidized bed gasifier, a thermal system that pumps air up through a bed of hot sand, creating bubbles and a sand-air pseudo fluid. A reaction between the biomass and the hot sand-air mixture produces flammable gases. The process also generates its own heat to sustain the reaction. It's a system that's reliable, produces few emissions and can be efficiently integrated into a plant's existing natural gas boilers and dryers.

A plants distillers grains will supposedly supply >100% of it's energy needs.

I've heard the economics of this are favorable, perhaps someone knows more about this than I.

You're not the only one to figure out the ag-subsidy angle.

It makes plenty sense to effectively strip the sugars from corn production to make ethanol when you're left with the protein feed for livestock.

The problem with your analysis is that, at 51¢/gallon subsidy and an EROEI of 1.3 at best (and perhaps as low as RR's calculated 1.09), each gallon-equivalent of new energy is receiving at least $2.21 (1.3:1) and possibly as much as $6.18 (1.09:1) in subsidy.

There are a lot of ways to save petroleum at far lower cost than even the lowest estimate.  Ethanol subsidies are money down a rathole.

1.3 * ethanol in = ethanol out
1.3 * 3.33 = 4.33
and observe that ethanol out - ethanol in = 1

If 4.33 gallons are produced and there are no other energy inputs or outputs, 3.33 gallons is used to produce the ethanol and only 1 gallon is aviable for something useful. I assume that some of the wasteproducts could be used to something useful but this must be really bad anyway.