Obama Visits & Praises Ethanol Plant Without Even Thinking Of Consequences

[one...two...tree 2,762]

kma, neocon!

Not until you put some diaper rash on it, guv'mint leech.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Ethanol is a scam? Or is the way we produce ethanol in the United States a scam?

See: Brazil.

kma, neocon!

The way that Brazil produces it is going to wreak havoc in the long term. Brazil produces ethanol using sugar cane which uses far more of the water supply than any other plant.

[PhiLandShiR 18]

Ethanol is a scam? Or is the way we produce ethanol in the United States a scam?

See: Brazil.

In his January 2006 State of the Union address, President George Bush presented a laundry list of things his administration would do to help America kick its oil habit.

"We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks and switchgrass," the president promised.

Many Americans had never heard of switchgrass back then.

Now a lot of switchgrass has been through the mill, so to speak. There has been little evidence that growing grass could actually make a dent in the demand for oil. But now there's new research showing that this prairie plant might actually be a good source of ethanol.

That could be good news. Right now, Americans get their ethanol fuel from corn — so much of it that corn prices have been bouncing up near historic levels. A lot of economists say if the country wants more ethanol, it should not come from food.

Thus, switchgrass. It's a kind of prairie grass, but you don't have to go to a prairie to find it. For example, it grows on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where Ken Staver has been tending a plot for years. It can reach 6 feet high, is yellowish and is as stiff as a pencil.

"You can see it's done very well here," says Staver, a scientist with the University of Maryland, "with very little care other than when we planted it 10 years ago when we used some herbicide during the establishment phase. But literally the only thing we do out here every year is harvest it."

Switchgrass contains cellulose, the starting material that, with enough heat and the right enzymes and chemicals, can be made into ethanol fuel.

Easy to Grow and Harvest

Staver says one of the good things about this grass is that it pretty much grows by itself.

"It's considered a perennial plant," he says, "so it does reseed some, but mostly these are the original plants. It's not growing back from seedlings every year, it's growing back from the same rootstock."

So you don't have to plant it every year or even fertilize it much. And it's easy to harvest.

These things are essential to make fuel from plants — so-called biofuels. The more energy used to make them — for example, gas for tractors, or electricity to convert them into a liquid fuel — the lower your "net energy yield." In short, if it takes close to a gallon of gasoline to make a gallon of biofuel, why bother?

In a new study, plant scientist Ken Vogel found switchgrass is worth the bother. He's with the federal government's Agricultural Research Service in Nebraska.

Vogel spent five years with farmers growing switchgrass in the Midwest. It was one of the biggest experiments with actual crops. He calculated with what might seem like mind-numbing thoroughness everything that went into each plot.

"This includes the energy used for fuel," he says, "the energy used to make the tractors, the energy used to make the seed to plant the field, the energy used to produce the herbicide, the energy used to produce the fertilizer, the energy used in the harvesting process."

More Efficient than Corn

For every unit of energy used to grow the switchgrass, Vogel says he could get almost 5 1/2 units worth of ethanol. That's a lot more efficient than making ethanol from corn, he says. He's bullish on switchgrass' future.

"The bottom line is perennial energy crops are very net energy-efficient. It is going to be economically feasible, the basic conversion technology has been developed, and it is going to be a viable process."

Vogel has focused on the growing part of the process. He hasn't demonstrated that commercial distilleries can actually achieve the same level of efficiency.

One issue is how to power the distillery. If you use electricity made from coal, you lose some of the advantage of biofuels. Vogel argues that a distillery could regain that advantage by burning leftover parts of the switchgrass to generate energy.

Vogel's research appears in the latest issue of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

The way that Brazil produces it is going to wreak havoc in the long term. Brazil produces ethanol using sugar cane which uses far more of the water supply than any other plant.

they also get boatloads of rainfall in brazil too.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Let me say this to everyone. China is investing more than 80 billion dollars to research ways of reusing energy. In case the conservatives don't know, now is the time to know it. I think China invests like 300 billion dollars already just for the decade long three gorges dam. Then, they are contributing to research far outweighs the amount the US is spending.

In the end, if the conservatives stop this tactic of stopping the US from consuming energy that is not renewable, then we would not be relying on the dam deisal and gasolines.

How dumb can conservatives be.

Highly doubt what? - US is using less than a few years ago, and China is growing continually.... I don't see what you can doubt about that?

You can't 'demand' technology change, you need to give incentives, not award research grants without results first.

[Peikko 1,575]

Cows don't normally eat corn. They only do because of subsidies making it very cheap.

Exactly. Time to return agriculture to a more natural, sustainable methodology.

[mawilson 2,133]

Many Americans had never heard of switchgrass back then.

Neither did GWB.

[PhiLandShiR 18]

Exactly. Time to return agriculture to a more natural, sustainable methodology.

Having spent 18 years growing up on a farm I can tell you for sure that returning agriculture to a more natural, sustainable methodology will severely reduce yields.

If that is done, who gets to select who we execute or let starve cause we can't feed them...

[Peikko 1,575]

Having spent 18 years growing up on a farm I can tell you for sure that returning agriculture to a more natural, sustainable methodology will severely reduce yields.

If that is done, who gets to select who we execute or let starve cause we can't feed them...

You are kidding right? We waste trillions of tons of food every year. I realize that agricuture needs a certain amount of technology in order for food to be available at a reasonable price, but to suggest that people will starve because of a change in policy is a bit far fetched - I am talking about changes that should be made because currently the practices used actually cause horrendous harm to the environment and which are going to destroy the land as things stands, particularly the factory animal farms with the effluent run off.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Madame Cleo

[Dan J 277]

Having spent 18 years growing up on a farm I can tell you for sure that returning agriculture to a more natural, sustainable methodology will severely reduce yields.

If that is done, who gets to select who we execute or let starve cause we can't feed them...

Considering 70% of our crops go to feed animals, thats a bunch of BS (Which is actually inefficient, has a 90% energy loss). Meat might get somewhat more expensive, but there will still be a lot of food to be had.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Dan + Gemvita

[PhiLandShiR 18]

You are kidding right? We waste trillions of tons of food every year. I realize that agricuture needs a certain amount of technology in order for food to be available at a reasonable price, but to suggest that people will starve because of a change in policy is a bit far fetched - I am talking about changes that should be made because currently the practices used actually cause horrendous harm to the environment and which are going to destroy the land as things stands, particularly the factory animal farms with the effluent run off.

I think its a bit far fetched to think a policy change would prevent the waste trillions of tons of food every year... so its a given that waste will change very little. And given that waste does not change very much, we have lots of people to feed with a much reduced crop....

[PhiLandShiR 18]

Considering 70% of our crops go to feed animals, thats a bunch of BS (Which is actually inefficient, has a 90% energy loss). Meat might get somewhat more expensive, but there will still be a lot of food to be had.

I am not happy eating beans and vegetables all the time. I want my meat! As do hundreds of millions of others... meat would get a LOT more expensive, which means that the bulk of the grains would go where the profit is. That 70% would still head off to the feed lots and those with out cash would go hungry.

[Dan J 277]

I am not happy eating beans and vegetables all the time. I want my meat! As do hundreds of millions of others... meat would get a LOT more expensive, which means that the bulk of the grains would go where the profit is. That 70% would still head off to the feed lots and those with out cash would go hungry.

If we were letting market forces determine the price of meat, it would actually be higher than it is now. The government subsidizes corn production which makes it a lot cheaper to raise cattle. Corn also causes issues with E.coli, since its not the natural diet of cattle, but that's another issue.

As it is right now, due to the energy loss of biological processes, it takes 10 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. As we cut back on meat consumption, we wont run out of food, its just that the diet will be less meat heavy.

[Peikko 1,575]

I think its a bit far fetched to think a policy change would prevent the waste trillions of tons of food every year... so its a given that waste will change very little. And given that waste does not change very much, we have lots of people to feed with a much reduced crop....

I honestly have no idea how we can persuade people to waste less food. My mother's generation have a complete horror of food waste, nothing gets thrown out. Leftovers meals are common. To a certain extent I am the same but I still waste more than she ever would.

However, what I said was that unless we change the way we produce meat we are going to poison a lot of land and water and what that will cause in terms of loss of food production is certainly problematic, if not downright scary.

I am not suggesting some fanciful, completely natural, non interventionist solution. However, it is clear to me that certain practices are literally toxic, not just in terms of the concentrated effluents that are produced by these methods, but by the inferior quality of the meat and the unsustainable and probably dangererous levels of antibiotics that are routinely administered to cope with the diseases endemic in keeping animals in unnatural habitats. When I say dangerous, we know that there is a potential for disaster with the overuse of antibiotics. We already know there are organisms that are resistant to known anti-biotics with this continued overuse we are knowingly skirting with disaster every day this continues. We can and should do better.