Hopkinsville ethanol plant hailed as environmental breakthrough

[Bdog]

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20040619/localnews/678969.html

HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. -- A new corn-mashing ethanol plant here is the source of unavoidable chuckles because it runs and sometimes smells much like a gigantic, sophisticated moonshine still.

But this is nothing close to bootlegging, and it's no laughing matter. The 190-proof ethanol product and by-products this new Commonwealth Agri-Energy plant generates are being widely hailed as a key to changing the balance of power on the global fuel market, while boosting local corn production and pricing, and preserving air quality through clean energy consumption.

Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky and federal officials all celebrated this week the successful opening of a $32 million facility owned collectively by some 2,300 corn producers in 30 Kentucky counties.

Brothers Bruce and Ralph Bullard, who grow about 250 acres of corn in Christian County, Ky., said the plant is going to make a difference for people from all walks of life, locally and even internationally.

"For us, it ought to help the price of corn and it keeps us from depending on foreign sources to sell our grain," said Bruce Bullard, who recently retired from Fort Campbell's civilian work force.

"This is a place where we can market our product locally. It's really the first local grain market we've had in this area, other than the Sunflower Mill. I think it's going to help raise the price that farmers are paid per bushel by 30 to 50 cents."

"I think the whole country ought to convert to ethanol gas," Ralph Bullard added. He might not get an argument from consumers who are now paying $2 a gallon this vacation travel season for fuel derived from the world oil market.

[tapper]

1. Color me skeptical...

but I really wonder how much corn-based ethanol will help the oil-dependency issue. First of all, ethanol gets subsidies for its use as a gasoline additive. (http://www.taxpayer.net/energy/ethanol.htm ) More importantly, corn growing in this country is heavily dependent on fertilizer, which is based on ...

Fossil fuel.

I suspect that biomass-derived fuel will need to be one leg of a sustainable energy future, but not based on the current corn/ethanol situation.

[rocketdem]

2. Btu's in versus Btu's out.

The last time that I read about the details of producing ethanol as a fuel it was pretty clear that it's a net negative energy balance. In other words, it takes more than one Btu of energy to yield one Btu of ethanol energy.

Granted, I could be out of date a bit since it's been a while since I read about it, but unless or until the process can show a net energy increase, output versus input, it can't unforutnately be our savior.

On the other hand, if it were possible to connect ethanol production to something like solar power, then we'd be on to something.

[Bdog]

3. Corn ethanol yeilds 34 percent more energy than it takes to produce it,

http://www.usda.gov/oce/oepnu/aer-814.pdf
Summary
Ethanol production in the United States grew from just a few million gallons in the mid-1970s to over 1.7 billion gallons in 2001, spurred by national energy security concerns, new Federal gasoline standards, and government incentives. Production of corn-ethanol is energy efficient, in that it yields 34 percent more energy than it
takes to produce it, including growing the corn, harvesting it, transporting it, and distilling it into ethanol.

Growth in ethanol production has provided an economic stimulus for U.S. agriculture, because most ethanol is made from corn. The increase in ethanol demand has created a new market for corn, and agricultural policymakers see expansion of the ethanol industry as a way of increasing farm income and reducing farm program payments, while helping the U.S. economy decrease its dependence on imported
oil. Increasing ethanol production induces a higher demand for corn and raises the average corn price. Higher corn prices can result in reduced farm program payments.

Today’s higher corn yields, lower energy use per unit of output in the fertilizer industry, and advances in fuel conversion technologies have greatly enhanced the energy efficiency of producing ethanol compared with just a decade ago. Studies
using older data may tend to overestimate energy use because the efficiency of growing corn and converting it to ethanol has been improving significantly over time. The estimated net energy value (NEV) of corn ethanol was 21,105 Btu/gal under the following assumptions: fertilizers are produced by modern processing
plants, corn is converted in modern processing facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts.

Moreover, producing ethanol from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy. Ethanol production uses abundant domestic supplies of coal and natural gas to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel that can displace petroleum imports.

[Bdog]

6. without ethanol gasoline would cost an additional 30 cents per gallon

GW has done more for ethanol and biodiesel than any subsidy could have ever done.

http://www.e85fuel.com/front_page/Kaptur_biofuels060404.htm
Some of the highlights from Urbanchuk's report are:

* Without ethanol, gas prices would increase 14.6 percent, or 30.2 cents per gallon in the short term (including the entire summer driving season).
* Without ethanol, gas prices would increase 3.7 percent, or 7.6 cents per gallon, in the long term once refiners build new capacity or secure alternative sources of supply.
* More than 30 percent of all U.S. gasoline is blended with ethanol.
* Without ethanol, refiners would be forced to import about 217,000 barrels per day of high-octane, gasoline blending components

favorable price has helped ethanol blends gain a 68.3 percent market share
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1839&dept_id=110408&newsid=1183...
The average price for regular unleaded gasoline containing ethanol was $1.94 a gallon. Part of the cost savings is in taxes, which are slightly lower on ethanol blends
The favorable price has helped ethanol blends gain a 68.3 percent market share, a record high for a monthly market share.

[Bdog]

4. Switchgrass Ethanol Energy Gain of 344%

http://www.westbioenergy.org/july98/0798_01.htm
Oklahoma Researchers Test Switchgrass for Biofuel Production
A sea of switchgrass once grew in the central and eastern portions of the United States from the Gulf Coast to Canada. Today, switchgrass survives mainly on land not used for other purposes, land that is poorer in quality or land in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.

However, if research at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater proves fruitful, this innocuous native grass may once again wave across vast areas grown as a feedstock to make biofuel.

Biofuel is fuel derived from plants. One biofuel, ethanol, is primarily made from corn and grain sorghum and blended with gasoline, but ethanol also can be made from other plant matter, waste dairy products and grasses such as switchgrass. Research has shown that, with the right infrastructure, ethanol could be produced from switchgrass more efficiently than from corn.

[rustydad]

5. Everthing that i have read.................

...........and that is a lot says that plant sugar derived ethanol is a net energy sink. More fossil fuel energy is invested in producing it than comes out at the end. Even if new efficiencies are making it more efficient it is said that to produce enough ethanol to replace our imports of oil would require the convertion of all our farmland to ethanol plant feedstock. What then do we eat? Bob

[jmowreader]

10. It's not intended to replace our oil imports....

but to reduce them.

Today's meandering through the minefield that is my brain...

I have learned today that there are two ways ethanol is made commercially. One is distillation; we all know how that works. The other is steam polymerization--bubble steam (H2O) through ethene (C2H4) in the presence of phosphoric acid to create ethanol (C2H5OH). Ethene (aka ethylene) can be cracked from coal, or as a small-molecule petrochemical. (Extracting ethylene from petroleum to make alcohol to use instead of gasoline sounds like something a Republican would think of, which is why cracking it from coal is so important. But if you refine crude oil and ethylene falls out, why not use it? I'm not proud; I'll get my ethylene anywhere I can.)

The ethanol synthesis requires high temperatures and elevated pressures--300 atmospheres has been mentioned. Could we use geothermal energy to get us there? Could we use the benzene fraction of coal to run the whole process?

Hence, if we produce all of our fuel ethanol through synthesis rather than distillation, the "what will we eat?" question disappears.

Also consider: we will never be able to end the use of "gasoline." A certain percentage of non-alcoholic hydrocarbon fuelstocks must remain available for legacy engines. Throw straight ethanol at an older engine and it will require new fuel lines at minimum, will definitely require a different fuel metering calibration (ranging from the simple--rejet the carburetor--to the complex--start screwing with fuel-flow on an electronically-fuel-injected engine), and will produce less horsepower because alcohol has less energy in it than does gasoline. (The "liberal" solution is to just ban gasoline-fueled engines in favor of alcohol-fueled ones. Tell a classic car fan he can't drive his baby anymore and see just how far you get--not to mention the fact that "Red Barchetta" was supposed to be a fun song about fleeing from the cops, not a prediction of the future.) There's a lot of gasohol floating around and it's not too bad for these guys to work with; selling it alongside pure alcohol is a good sound solution.

Another problem alcohol has: It's hydrophilic--it absorbs water from the air. Lots of water. Which cuts down on its ability to make power.

Most of the problems (save maybe the hydrophilia comment) are solvable. That too, perhaps, if a blanket of dry gas (like nitrogen or carbon monoxide) was injected into the fuel tank above the ethanol.

[kysrsoze]

25. Good thinking. If you can do this on your own, the oil companies can too

BTW - Top-fuel dragsters run on pure alcohol and develop anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 horsepower. Sure it's expensive to produce and there are a few technical barriers, but over time costs drop and you get better at what you're doing. We really have no other choice than to drop as much oil usage as we can.

[alfredo]

7. So it produces 476,190.5 barrels a year, plus the other products

like feed grain. One or two in each corn producing state would make a dent in imports, not a big dent, but a step in the right direction.


California consumed 40.5 million gallons of gasoline per day. 2001

[BushHater2004]

8. blah blah blah blah blah

n/t

[Bdog]

12. Used cooking oil is as good as gold

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x632926
MINDEN, Nev. - Most Wednesdays by 7:30 a.m., Patti Bently and Ken Waldram are heading north on U.S. 395 from Bently Agrowdynamics in Minden to collect used cooking oil - the stuff that restaurants discard after you've had it your way with french fries and bacon.

Ten stops are on their route. On a typical run, they collect a half-dozen 55-gallon drums of used oil.

Bently raps the side of a drum with her knuckles. If it sounds full, she pulls on a pair of green gloves, checks the contents and signals to Waldram to bring a dolly to remove the drum and to leave a clean container for the next week.

The trip takes about three hours as they stop at establishments in Carson City, Stateline and the Minden-Gardnerville area. They hope to add more when the company owned by Minden businessman and inventor Don Bently turns the fat or vegetable oil into biodiesel fuels.

As the cost of petroleum fuel skyrockets, Don Bently believes the market for biodiesel fuel will grow.

He's investing $1.2 million in a plant he hopes in a year will produce 300,000 gallons of biodiesel for use in his extensive ranching operations and eventual sale to the public.

[Bdog]

13. Bats as Natrural Crop Dusters

How to increase corn yields without man made fertilzer and control pests without man made pesticides.

Bats as Natural Crop Dusters

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x10130
"Adult corn earworms / cotton bollworms, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie), are part of a mobile pest insect complex which annually infests corn, cotton, and other crops in Texas and the contiguous U.S. Crop infestations by H. zea can significantly decrease crop yield and quality, and can increase crop protection costs. Radar field studies indicate that large populations of H. zea and other noctuid moths migrate from the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Central Texas, and their progeny continue the seasonal progression northward across the central U.S." (John K. Westbrook, USDA, ARS, Areawide Pest Management Research Unit)

"Large numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana in Central Texas fly to the same altitudes and locations as the migratory populations of corn earworms and other pest insects. Doppler radar documents the movements of the large bat populations. Radiomicrophone bat detectors that perceive the ultrasonic echolocation calls of foraging bats reveal high levels of Mexican free-tailed bat feeding activity at altitudes of several 100 to over 1000 m above ground level. Dietary studies at three large central Texas bat roosts show seasonal and daily patterns of moth consumption that are consistent with the hypothesis that these bats prey heavily on the migratory pest insect populations." (Gary F. McCracken, Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

"To assess the ecological impact of Mexican free-tailed bat populations on insect populations in south-central Texas, a combination of field and laboratory techniques, including gravimetric and fecal analysis, radiotelemetry, and doubly-labeled water, have been used to determine what, when, and how many insects these bats eat nightly. Mexican free-tailed bats typically feed twice nightly, averaging eight hours on the wing each night during lactation. Each female consumes about 9.1 g of insects each night during peak lactation, averaging 73% of her body mass. When averaged over the warm season (April through October), females consume approximately 50% of their body mass each night. Preliminary assessment of diet indicates that coleopterans (beetles) dominate the first feeding period and lepidopterans (moths) dominate the second feeding period." (Thomas H. Kunz, Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, Boston University)


Hauling the 1918 Mitchell's Lake Bat Roost
Guano crop to market -- 4012 pounds.

[Bdog]

15. Bio Mass has a net energy gain.

It is called the carbon cycle.

Where do you think all of the fossil fuels came from.

Plants are natures solar cells. All they need is CO2, H2O, and sunlight. Fertilizers just give the necessary nutrients to sustain the process. All of the energy needed to grow things comes from the sun. Plant tissue and materials are stored solar energy.

Plants don't use oil or natural gas as a power source.

If there were no net energy gain from biomass we would have all starved to death by now.
http://mcnet.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html

[Bdog]

22. Closing the carbon loop

http://www.montanagreenpower.com/harvestingcleanenergy/lusk.html
Working with the newly formed Dakota Value Capture Cooperative, Lusk says PRIME Technologies will build a "closed loop" facility in Sully County, South Dakota, consisting of an ethanol plant capable of producing 20 million gallons of ethanol annually and a climate-controlled feedlot capable of finishing 65,000 head of cattle a year.

Lusk explained the project at the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference October 9-11 in Great Falls.

The plant and feedlot will be connected by a state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion system that will capture odor and manure at the feedlot and convert it into methane, which will be burned at the ethanol plant. In addition, wet distillers grain, a byproduct of ethanol production, will be fed to cattle in the feedlot, thereby eliminating drying and transportation costs. This strategy will enable South Dakota producers and others to feed South Dakota corn and milo to beef cattle and "capture" value that has previously been exported to other states.

The Sully County facility will owned by the DVCC and will be built and managed on behalf of the coop by PRIME Technologies, LLC, which is also located in Pierre. This is the first facility of the kind a recent study conducted by the University of South Dakota said could create more than $500 million in new wealth annually in the state as well as 10,000 new jobs in rural communities. The study, commissioned by the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council, said that this economic growth could be achieved by building large feedlots and dairies next to ethanol plants.

The coop board is made up of farmers and ranchers from across the state who want to capture profits lost to out-of-state feeders and processors. Contact Phil Lusk for more information.

[truthisfreedom]

9. ethanol, just like hydrogen, takes too much energy to prepare, causing it

to be more of an energy storage medium than an energy source. we need to rethink the whole thing... what we really need is a method of cleanly generating power that can be cleanly used to provide transportation, without burning anything and yielding more CO2.

[SharonAnn]

11. Ethanol Problems Trigger National EPA Crackdown

Gopher state ethanol problems trigger national crackdown

The Environmental Protection Agency is negotiating with ethanol plants across the nation to cut back air pollution. Testing at Gopher State Ethanol, a converted St. Paul brewery, showed levels of pollutants far higher than the industry had claimed. Those results triggered an EPA crackdown on ethanol plants nationwide.

Gopher State Ethanol installed a $1.2 million thermal oxidizer, but neighborhood residents continue to complain of odors and ill health effects. "It seems to knock out some of the most noxious of the odors," says Darren Wolfson. "There's no question that it's helped, when it's on and working, but it doesn't help enough."
...
Darren Wolfson, who lives five blocks away, noticed the change in the air immediately. "The second they flipped the switch, it was like a smack in the face, he says. Emissions from the plant's 200-foot-tall stack soon began drifting into gardens of the stately homes in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood, which overlooks the river flats.
...
Prodded by hundreds of complaints, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began testing emissions from the plant. They found high levels of carbon monoxide, as well as what are known as Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs. VOCs included formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, both of which are known to cause cancer in animals.

The vast majority of the nation's ethanol plants are located in rural countryside outside small towns and cities. There, they have not generated anything like the outcry heard in St. Paul. But given the test results at Gopher State, the EPA began sampling emissions of rural plants as well, and found problems just as severe.

The EPA concluded that "most if not all" ethanol plants are emitting air pollutants at many times the rate allowed by their permits.


http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200209/23_losurem_ethanol/

http://tinyurl.com/2rotl

[jmcgowanjm]

14. Most efficient use of corn is directly from stalk to mouth

It will take violence to divert the corn into fuelprocess
when peakoil arrives.

And w/o oil/gas input 175 bu/acre corn drops to 35-40
bu/acre.

[Bdog]

16. Plants don't use oil or natural gas as a power souce.

Plants are natures solar cells. All they need is CO2, H2O, and sunlight. Fertilizers just give the necessary nutrients to sustain the process. All of the energy needed to grow things comes from the sun. Plant tissue and materials are stored solar energy.

Plants don't use oil or natural gas as a power source.

If there were no net energy gain from biomass we would have all starved to death by now.

[HarveyBriggs]

17. What the critics are saying ...

Currently it takes fossil fuel to produce corn.

We put it in our tractors when we plant, fertilize, spray and harvest.

We also use natural gas to cook up the mash and distill it into alchohol.

However this process has gotten more efficient, and we gain more energy from ethanol now than we put into its production.

Harvey Briggs

[jmcgowanjm]

19. It is impossible to value add increased energy

Except w/ a self sustaining organism.
And we don't understand how this happens.

The source of energy can only be degraded.
Ethanol can only be an energy carrier if it is found,
say, in a previously undiscovered pool-
like oil and gas- and it takes less energy to
pull it out than the energy it contains-or
it becomes an energy sink.

[FlaGranny]

23. How much fossil fuel

did Native Americans use to grow their maize?

[jmcgowanjm]

24. As much as we'll be using 50+ years from now

And getting the same yield and feeding the same
number of Native Americans.

[jmcgowanjm]

18. But the biomass has produced 6.5B and can't be sustained

At best we flatline on hydrocarbon production while
pop. is still growing.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/IIASA2004.pdf

We're following an exact replication of the successful
completion of a parabolic curve w/ the consumption
of the free energy source found.
(St Matthews Island syndrome)

Again NAmerican gas production is falling rapidly.
The corn must have water, fertilizer and
clean dirt/no competition for max yield.

175 becomes 40bu/acre when any of the above are removed.

We eat oil.

[DenaliDemocrat]

20. The Problem

with ethanol though is its toxicity to the environment. I do environmental restoration, and a lot of groundwater clean up. The ethanol spills are very nasty and very hard to mitigate. Once it gets in the groundwater, its almost impossible to get out. To get heavily into ethanol is to rob Peter to pay Paul,

[jmcgowanjm]

21. So the ethanol that spilt off the coast a while back

was that worse than an oil spill?

And welcome to DU.

I love messin' w/ Texas.

But I'm glad I missed the Whoopin' that Texas gave
my Razorbacks in the CWS. Hope the
Horns win it all.

[Sophree]

26. Don't forget about HEMP.

1 acre of hemp can yield as much as 1,000 gallons of ethanol fuel and is naturally insect-repellant and requires no insecticides, pesticides, or fertilizers.