Growing corn for ethanol is hard on the environment.

[hunter]

In general growing corn is hard on the environment.

I haven't checked corn prices recently, but last I looked organically grown corn was selling for more than twice as much as commodity corn. When we talk about using corn to make ethanol we are generally not talking about organically grown corn... "Organically grown" ethanol would be very expensive.

My own intuition and a few back of the envelope calculations lead me to believe that biodiesel made from ethanol and various vegetable oils would be far easier on the environment. The fact that diesel engines are more efficient than "flexfuel" type engines plays a part in these calculations.

Ethyl ester biodiesel is not as simple to make as methyl ester biodiesel, but on larger industrial scales this shouldn't be a problem. If we are going to use agriculturally derived fuels, biodiesel might be a better choice than fuel ethanol, and maybe any ethanol we make should be used in biodiesel.

It's quite possible that biodiesel might be made from non-edible oils derived from nitrogen fixing plants with greater oil productivity and a greater resistance to pests than edible oil plants. For fuel oil use it doesn't matter if an oil can't be eaten. If this toxicity makes the plant naturally resistant to pests, so much the better.

It seems to me that ethanol is just the latest of many get rich quick schemes promoted by the likes of General Motors and ADM. These schemes are meant to sound good for the environment, but it doesn't really matter to these corporations if they are. Basically they are advertising "we're green" without doing anything really substantial.

"Our cars run on E85!"

Big deal. I can drive an E85 SUV from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and fill up in Henderson, but maybe a high speed electric train would be better for the earth and my fellow travelers.

[xmas74]

1. Yes, an electric train would be better for all.

But E85 might be the start of something more for those of us who live in rural areas. We in rural areas have no access to public transit. Even the smallest change would mean so much to us out here.

I do believe in a public transit system for all in the US. I also know that, for some of us, it is not a possibility at this time. For those of us in rural areas, even the smallest change can mean more than you would think.

[hunter]

11. I have an E85 car.

I don't use E85 because I can't get it. If I had a diesel fueled car I could get biodiesel.

http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/retailfuelingsites/showstate.asp?st=CA

[xmas74]

12. I haven't found E85 in my area either.

I don't know if this will prompt more stations to get E85 or not, but at least it's a start.

And biodiesel is still about an half hours drive for me to fuel up.

[NNadir]

2. I am not going to see half of the responses you get.

I finally broke down and used the "ignore" button.

I do think that biodiesel is a superior motor fuel, for a lot of reasons. I note that ethyl esters, however, congeal at higher temperatures than their methyl analogues.

No biological fuel has the potential to allow us to live as we live now.

The high speed electric train, of course, is the best solution. If humanity survives and has any kind of mechanized transport left to it in the next century - part of me doubts either - trains will be back big time.

One possibility of course, is to return to steam - the old way, wood or coal. Neither of these options are even remotely sustainable given our current population.

[hunter]

5. No need for biodiesel when you can run on plain old vegetable oil.

Biodiesel is a bridge fuel.

In any case, keeping ethyl esters liquid is not rocket science. All of these would be blended fuels, and diesel fuel is typically a large mix of things with higher and lower melting points.

[NNadir]

8. It is a help.

I don't deny that. But it's potential, even in the best case, is small.

Many people look at these kinds of things and engage in magical thinking. So long as we don't do that, I think biodiesel as a great fuel. (I commenced my education on this subject because of Duers I note.)

The primary means, by the way, of extracting plant oils from plants is continuous extraction with hexanes. The hexanes are recycled, but they are, nontheless, petroleum derivatives. I note that this extraction process is nowhere near as energy intensive as the distillation of alcohol.

[JohnWxy]

27. I think bio-diesel and "plain ol' vegetable oil" -are great! But ..

can we get people to embrace them and get production of it scaled up quickly? Ethanol is already being produced and used and can be expanded more quickly to a reasonable scale (10% of gasoline demand and beyond) than any other fuel I can think of (plus of course, it emits far fewer GHGs and is a domestic fuel). But at the same time, we absolutely should be pushing other renewables such as what you have mentioned. Selling people on bio-diesel and vegetable oil however, is even harder than convincing people that cars can run on corn juice(unless they are race car drivers!).

We are looking at an oil supply disruption of 5% to 10% anytime within the next few years (political situation in NIgeria, Iran, Venezuela, Saudia Arabia -terrorist attacks, 2006,-07,-08,.. hurricane seasons - Gulf Oil production still down about 24% from pre-Katrina levels). This could happen tomorrow. We need to get at least 5% to 10% of gasoline supply replaced as quickly as possible. adn then of course, continue toward replacing larger and larger portions until fuel cell cars are practical.

I would love to see bio-diesel andor vegetable oil brought up to 5% or more of fuel demand (and then beyond that, in time) but how quickly can that be done? I would still be for ethanol though. Develop all practical renewable resources. We're going to need them ALL.

What is the potential for the fuels you mention? Can they be expand to meet 30% or more of fuel demand? I was under the impression that the fuels you mention would be somewhat limited in there ultimate potential for replacing a significant portion of the gasoline supply. Not so?


Regarding the growing of corn (of course cellulosic ethanol won't need corn) we can change wasteful agricultural practices: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x50045

[goodhue]

3. Sure, but less hard than drilling for petroleum . . .

[madmark]

4. i thought biomass, ie garbage, was going to be next big source of

ethanol/methanol, not corn.

[hunter]

7. If you are going full synthesis you may as well make gasoline and diesel.

Making gasoline from methanol is a straightforward process.

I've always thought the MTBE fiasco was a half-assed way of doing this. MTBE is easier to make than gasoline from natural gas, and somebody had the bright idea of using MTBE as a gasoline additive and making lots of money.

"We'll say it reduces air pollution, yeah, that's the ticket!"

Same sort of crap with ethanol, different day.

The biology of methanol vs. ethanol in aquatic systems is interesting. Just because we can deal with ethanol in our tap water better than we can methanol doesn't mean aquatic lifeforms are so lucky. In aquatic systems both alcohols are deadly.

[mzteris]

6. have you read this book?

The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals (Hardcover)
by Michael Pollan

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200823/102-0496852-4813728?v=glance&n=283155


I heard a portion of an interview of his today on NPR Fresh Air - where he was talking about CORN - and how much petroleum it takes to GROW CORN! .... and the huge "environmental footprint" of growing corn - the pollution, etc..

Sounds really interesting.

[hunter]

9. No, but I've always thought corn fed beef was a bad idea.

Let the cows eat grass.

If you are going to feed grain to something, feed it to fish, they make more meat, providing of course you don't destroy natural aquatic ecosystems growing your grain fed fish...

[mzteris]

10. it's not just the corn

fed to cows - it's the corn used to feed us! It's in EVERYTHING... think high fructose corn syrup, for one! (from Amazon review of book: of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn.)

And trying to get my head around using fossil fuel to grow the corn to make ethanol to replace the fossil fuel so . . . :banghead:

[Dead_Parrot]

13. The fossil fuel problem is solvable...

Unless anyone one can tell me otherwise, growing sugar beet / corn / soy in a crop rotation would minimise the requirement for petro-fertilisers, and give you a good mix of ethanol & biodiesel crops for transport: The dregs of production being returned to the soil.

I'd agree that monocrop corn for ethanol is dumb, but it's not the only option.

[XemaSab]

14. Rotating corn and soy

would help somewhat for the high nitrogen demands of corn, but I'm not sure if you'd have to till the soy under for there to be a net nitrogen gain.

The other consideration besides the energy going towards the fertilizers is the sheer quantity of pesticides and fungicides used on corn.

Once smut gets into the system, it's an ongoing battle.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. It would depend on the harvesting method...

At this point, I fall back on my defense that, as an IT consultant, I know fuck all about soy bean harvesting methodology. :D
Although I doubt it would be a problem - surely not many bean harvesters would pull up the roots?

And yeah, this would be better as an 'organic' solution, not a chemical one.

[XemaSab]

16. I dunno anything about soybeans either

But I think you have to at least leave the greenery in place if not the beans themselves in order to get a net N gain?

Anyone? :shrug:

[Dead_Parrot]

17. I dun't fink so

the fixing is done by bacteria in the root system, IIRC, and goes on for the life of the plant: Just growing the plant ups the nitrogen.

Maybe.

Unless I'm wrong.

:dunce:

[XemaSab]

23. It's done by bacteria in the root system

but it fixes the nitrogen into plant available form where it can be taken up into the plant, so it winds up in the greenery too.

[Dead_Parrot]

25. The non-bean bits of plant...

...would be better used as fertiliser anyway, so I think it works out ok... :shrug:

[mzteris]

18. crop rotation

"Tofu and soy oil come from soy bean plants that are grown on farms. Many farmers grow soy beans as cash crops that they can send to places such as tofu processing plants. Soybean plants are legumes. Legumes have bacteria on nodules which are on the roots of the plant. The bacteria on the nodules takes nitrogen from the air and fixes it into the soil, so that other plants that require nitrogen can use it as well.

This nitrogen cycle that was breifly discussed above is used in what farmers call a crop rotation. Farmers use soybeans and other legumes in roatations with grass crops such as corn or wheat. Grass crops are unable to take their own nitrogen from the air so they either need the nitrogen in the soil that the legumes provide for them in a crop rotation or they need a chemical fertilizer containing nitrogen. Many farmers choose to use both. Most farmers use a two or four year rotation on their fields. In a two year rotation a farmer will alternate a year of a legume such as soybeans and a year of a grass crop such as corn. In a four year rotation a farmer will alternate back and forth between legumes and grass crops just as in a two year rotation, but instead he will use four differnt crops. For example, a farmer may plant a rotation of soybeans, corn, alfalfa (a legume), then wheat (a grass) . . . Corn is in the center of many farm ecosystems. Corn uses the nitrogen produced by soybeans and other legume crops." http://www2.kenyon.edu/Projects/Farmschool/nature/soy.htm


and if you want to get really technical info:

http://www.gocorn.net/v2006/Nitrogen/articles/mag_Fertilizer.htm

[Sorwen]

19. corn already is rotated with soybeans

I saw you or someone else post something about this in a different thread and I wanted to point out that farmers are not dumb, they do rotate crops. Most corn is rotated with soybeans or some other crop. Even so, farmers will still add fertilizer to maximize yields. Where I live, the major crops planted in rotation are soybeans, wheat, sugarbeets, and, to a lesser extent, corn.

I happen to live in a major sugarbeet producing area, but sugarbeets are not something that can or will be widely produced. And U.S. grown sugar will not be used to produce ethanol because it would be uneconomical to do so. Sugar costs too much. The sugar in soft drinks was replaced with high fructose corn syrup for the same reason. Corn is cheaper.

[hunter]

20. Sugar costs too much, and corn and soybeans don't produce a lot of oil.

The market is artificially supported.

Sugar cane gets you 700 gallons per acre. Corn gets you 300 gallons. We use high fructose syrup from corn instead of higher quality cane sugar because the corn market is artificially supported.

A similar situation exists with oils. Oil palms produce over 600 gallons of oil per acre, soy beans produce 48 gallons per acre.

The corn / soybean rotation is not ideal for fuel production. Better schemes almost certainly exist, but the U.S. corn / soybean industry is politically entrenched.

[poopfuel]

22. most corn is grown for animal feed

87 percent, in fact. You show farmers how beets planted in rotation with corn, combined with ethanol production, will increase yields of ethanol and animal feed. Suddenly they want to make money and do things organically. And when you show them organic farming can decrease costs, if done systematically using dried distillers grains as fertilizer and yeast as animal feed, they'll move away from the present system.

No one likes oil palms because of how much has to be destroyed to grow these trees in the rainforest and such. Castor bean is a better source with high yield.

Sugar can be grown sensibly in some regions but there are plenty of other feedstocks that can be used for energy. And improve soil quality and reduce erosion. And provide us with homegrown fuel.

[hunter]

24. Corn and soybeans destroy ecosystems too.

If we didn't grow crops for animal feed or fuel maybe some of these ecosystems could be restored.

Imagine great thundering herds of wild bison roaming tens of thousands of square miles of former farmland. These bison probably wouldn't be bothered at all by wind farms.

Think BIG. Farming is not sacred, especially big corporate farms. Cars and trucks are not sacred. We could reduce the human footprint on the land dramatically if we ate less meat, and got rid of highways.

Cities might become dense enough that walking would be the primary means of transportation, and these cities could be linked by high speed rail. It really wouldn't even matter what fueled these railroads since the efficiency would be so much higher than our current transportation system. Biomass, wind, solar, nuclear -- these are all possibilities.

[poopfuel]

26. actually I agree

about animal feed and restoring ecosystems . And our present system of growing corn and soybeans (beets are more effective than soybeans providing necessary nutrients). And certainly, I agree, a pox on big corporate farms and monoculture.

But alcohol fuel production can restore ecosystems, soil, even repair the dead spots in the ocean by harvesting algae. As for moving everyone into the cities, I would hate to see that. I'd rather try to heal the rural areas and alcohol fuel is a means of doing so. No offense to the bison.

But it's a long convoluted story and you'll have to wait for my friend's book.

permaculture.com

PS I can't change people's driving habits, they have to choose to do that themselves. Cost and other factors (peak oil, etc) will do that.

I think the best way of handling power demand is through small scale generators, powered by biofuels and the like. Too many big centralized power plants haven't served us terribly well. I know people generally don't believe it's possible to do it this way but I think it's a better alternative. It's amazing what clever folks we have in this country when we set our minds to something.

[JohnWxy]

28. Bio-fuels coud be used to operate the farm machinery and you would be

reducing fossil fuel use there. Nitrogen fertilizers are over-used by farmers. Iowa did a study where they showed that farmers could reduce nitrogen use and still get the same (or better) crop productivity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x50045

They are just starting to use bio-fuels in the ethanol manufacturing process (methane from cow poop) to further reduce fossil fuel usage. This is just in the earliest stages.

http://www.e3biofuels.com/nm/publish/news_12.html

Originally published in the Omaha World Herald - 28 October 2005

MEAD, Neb. - An ethanol plant being built at a feedlot near here will be powered by manure, greatly reducing energy costs while making environmentally sound use of animal waste, company officials said Thursday.

The E3 Biofuels complex is using patented technology that involves putting manure from the 30,000-head feedlot at Mead Cattle Co. into an anaerobic digester, which breaks down the waste into fertilizer and methane-based gas.

Two huge concrete tanks for the anaerobic digester are under construction at the feedlot. The rest of the complex will be built this winter, with limited production planned by June 2006 and full-scale production in September. (broke ground in Oct 2005_JW)

~~
~~

The plant will use about 7 million bushels of corn to produce about 20 million gallons of ethanol a year.

"Fueled solely by methane gas generated from the manure, the ethanol plant will not need to be fueled by more traditional - and costly - natural gas", Hallberg said. "The cattle will eat the distillers grain right at the site, eliminating the need to dry and ship the product and saving energy and expense", he said.



~~
"Conserving water, making good use of waste material and not burning fossil fuel make the project a compelling step forward", Tuft said.

~~
The ethanol plant near Mead will be small compared with some others built around the country. Operators of a plant near Big Stone City, S.D., for example, announced Thursday that they plan to expand ethanol production there from 50 million to 75 million gallons a year.

The Mead plant, however, is designed to use all the cattle waste from the feedlot, produce enough distillers grain to feed the cattle at the site and draw from local sources of corn, keeping an environmentally and economically sound balance, said Mark Kraeger, chief operating officer of E3 Biofuels.

Using bio-fuels in the ethanol production process will sigificantly reduce the fossil fuel consuption in the production of ethanol. Expect to see further use of this "closed loop" approach to ethanol production.

[mzteris]

32. ** Iowa did a study -

- where they showed that farmers could reduce nitrogen use and still get the same (or better) crop productivity.**

Yeah. It's called CROP ROTATION! :D

"An ethanol plant being built at a feedlot "

I'm thinking they should build one near Washington, DC. Think of all the BS available there.

:rofl:

[IronLionZion]

21. Where do you get the electricity from

and what are the side-effects of building your train? There's an environmental cost to everything. If you think there isn't, you just haven't thought of it yet.

[Dogmudgeon]

29. Another looming problem - large-scale soil erosion

I am completely bereft of statistics for North America, but I do know that soil erosion and nutrient loss is global now. The northern Chinese "breadbasket" has been turning into airborne dust at an alarming rate, bound eventually for the North Pacific. Most of the world's protein now comes indirectly from soil amendments of ammonium nitrate -- from natural gas recovery.

I've looked around for the numbers and have come up empty-handed. It's just as possible that no one knows as that I haven't found them yet. But growing Green Revolution and Terminator plants for 6, then 7, then 8, etc., billion people is going to take a lot of nitrogen, not to mention the micronutrients.

Without missing a beat, a lot of people would say that "all we have to do" is to recycle our organic waste via composting. I agree with the need for and usefulness of agricultural composting, but is it enough to overcome the soil/nutrient loss? Or is this one of the inevitable consequences of a large-scale climate change?

--p!

[hunter]

30. I suspect ethanol costs are more closely linked to fossil fuel inputs...

...than the promoters of ethanol claim.

If ethanol is merely a means of carrying last year's lower fossil fuel prices into the next year, then we are not accomplishing anything worthwhile.

How much would organically grown ethanol and fuel oils produced and distributed using non-fossil fuel inputs really cost? Is ethanol merely a very convoluted way of making synthetic fuels from coal, oil, or natural gas?

More importantly, what is the environmental cost of biofuels? If we are merely using up good topsoil to make fuels we are little better off than we are using fossil fuels.

Just because we already have a political machine powered by corn and soy interests doesn't mean that's the best plan for our future.

In a similar way, sugar cane and palm oil production in tropical countries may not be the best thing for the people living in those countries.

In certain circumstances the production of biofuels might actually be harmful to the living standards of the majority of people living in a place. Historically this has often been the case. Think of all the times forests have been destroyed to make fuel. Ultimately most everyone suffers whenever this occurs.

[Dogmudgeon]

31. Recent studies indicate ethanol is useful. But not a rescue.

It would be a transitional fuel -- with the ultimate transition being to a new model of urban/rural life. The suburbs are not going to be very practical for about the next hundred years or so.

Other biofuels are similar. High-yield oil-producing algae for biodiesel show the most promise, but algae, too, require food and micronutrients.

--p!