Look beyond corn-based ethanol
The grain-based ethanol industry doesn’t seem to realize that its days as the darling of the renewable fuel industry are appearing at the edge of the rear view mirror.
Corn ethanol boosters even had the audacity — they probably didn’t recognize it as audacity at the time — to complain last week about a proposed far-off federal goal to produce more cellulosic ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol would be made from alternative plant materials such as switchgrass.
The technology for producing cellulosic ethanol is still experimental, but scientists are hopeful that it will produce a higher net energy return than can be achieved by using corn.
To encourage development of the industry, the U.S. Senate is considering a separate production goal after 2015 of 3 billion gallons for “advanced renewable fuels,” which would exclude corn and include cellulosic ethanol. In Lincoln last week, Doug Durante of the Clean Fuels Development Coalition said the provision would “definitely handicap corn ethanol beyond 15 billion gallons.”
Durante and the leadership of the Nebraska Ethanol Board believe that would be a bad outcome.
Good sense — and a growing number of people worried about the side effects of the corn ethanol boom — would argue otherwise.
Producing 15 billion gallons of ethanol would consume about half of the corn now produced in the United States.
Conservationists already are alarmed by the amount of water being used to irrigate corn and in ethanol plants.
Now beef producers, chicken producers, pork producers, grocers, egg producers and others are voicing fears that the skyrocketing price of corn is pushing food prices upward.
In a letter to Senate leaders the Balanced Food and Fuel Coalition complained that the new production goal for corn ethanol “is already having adverse impacts on food supplies and prices,” citing a report from Merrill Lynch that food prices this year are rising at an annualized rate of 7.3 percent.
The letter goes on to state bluntly, “It is generally accepted that limits on domestic corn ethanol production will be reached, possibly in the not to distant future,” and goes on to suggest that greater focus be placed on cellulosic ethanol.
Nebraska already has begun exploring cellulosic ethanol with research at the University of Nebraska. Abengoa Bioenergy has a pilot plant near York that will make cellulosic ethanol, initially with corn stalks and wheat straw.
Nebraska has been a leader in corn-based ethanol, ranking third in the nation in production of that form of ethanol. But the future belongs to other types of renewable fuels. Nebraska’s ag industry shouldn’t be fighting against the effort to produce commercially viable cellulosic ethanol, it should be fighting to join it.
Corn ethanol boosters even had the audacity — they probably didn’t recognize it as audacity at the time — to complain last week about a proposed far-off federal goal to produce more cellulosic ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol would be made from alternative plant materials such as switchgrass.
The technology for producing cellulosic ethanol is still experimental, but scientists are hopeful that it will produce a higher net energy return than can be achieved by using corn.
To encourage development of the industry, the U.S. Senate is considering a separate production goal after 2015 of 3 billion gallons for “advanced renewable fuels,” which would exclude corn and include cellulosic ethanol. In Lincoln last week, Doug Durante of the Clean Fuels Development Coalition said the provision would “definitely handicap corn ethanol beyond 15 billion gallons.”
Durante and the leadership of the Nebraska Ethanol Board believe that would be a bad outcome.
Good sense — and a growing number of people worried about the side effects of the corn ethanol boom — would argue otherwise.
Producing 15 billion gallons of ethanol would consume about half of the corn now produced in the United States.
Conservationists already are alarmed by the amount of water being used to irrigate corn and in ethanol plants.
Now beef producers, chicken producers, pork producers, grocers, egg producers and others are voicing fears that the skyrocketing price of corn is pushing food prices upward.
In a letter to Senate leaders the Balanced Food and Fuel Coalition complained that the new production goal for corn ethanol “is already having adverse impacts on food supplies and prices,” citing a report from Merrill Lynch that food prices this year are rising at an annualized rate of 7.3 percent.
The letter goes on to state bluntly, “It is generally accepted that limits on domestic corn ethanol production will be reached, possibly in the not to distant future,” and goes on to suggest that greater focus be placed on cellulosic ethanol.
Nebraska already has begun exploring cellulosic ethanol with research at the University of Nebraska. Abengoa Bioenergy has a pilot plant near York that will make cellulosic ethanol, initially with corn stalks and wheat straw.
Nebraska has been a leader in corn-based ethanol, ranking third in the nation in production of that form of ethanol. But the future belongs to other types of renewable fuels. Nebraska’s ag industry shouldn’t be fighting against the effort to produce commercially viable cellulosic ethanol, it should be fighting to join it.
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