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Mr. Greenjeans

Ethanol- Burning Our Food in our Gas Tanks
 

I was reading this article recently:

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml

Although it is full of information, the article is contradictory and leaves out or ignores many important facts.  The  following quote struck me, however. Mr. Zeigler is talking about the fact that with people starving on our planet, why would the United States initiate an ethanol production  policy that will  ultimately use 12% of the world's arable  land? He stated the following:

"It's a total disaster for those who are starving," says Jean Ziegler, the UN's food Rapporteur. "It takes 232kg of corn to make 50 litres of bioethnanol. A child could live on that amount of corn for years,"

I am no fan of ethanol as a fuel, but this statement needs clarification before we can explore the flaws in Bush's plan to save the world by using bio-fuels. What needs to be addressed is the theory that a child could live several years on 232kg (510lbs) of dry corn, the kind used to make ethanol. Don't forget, we're not talking about Green Giant niblets here, we're talking about bullet hard grain corn of the type used to feed cattle, pigs, and poultry. This corn is low in digestible protein (7% - 9%) and high in energy. Of course it's high in energy, how else could we get alcohol to burn out of it? You may as well feed the (hypothetical) child Mars bars. The second flaw in this theory is the assumption that after the process is complete, there is nothing left. Actually, if 232kg of corn were used to produce ethanol, 77kg (170 lbs) of dry distiller’s grain would be left. The fermentation process converts the starch in the corn into alcohol, and leaves behind the bran, the gluten, the oils, the vitamins, and the minerals, at 28% protein. The child in the example would obviously do much better eating the highly digestible distiller's grain than subsisting on an indigestible, low protein ration of corn.

That having been cleared up, here's the disturbing part: 232 kg of corn only produces 50 litres (12 gals) of ethanol. That's almost a quarter of a tonne of corn, which at $210 a tonne is around $53, to produce ethanol that replaces gasoline that runs around $1.04 a litre, making 50 litres of ethanol worth $52.  Then don't forget that vast quantities of water are required. Misuse of our food and our water to drive around in our cars. You can almost hear future historians saying "yes, their society began to decline when they started burning their limited food supply in their vehicles" Just try explaining the logic in using corn as fuel to someone (and there are more of them than of us) who has eaten almost nothing but rice his whole life. Fuel to drive around in a car with electric seats and air conditioning.

Ultimately, the best place for ethanol produced from corn is in a bottle labelled Jack Daniels.

 

submitted: Apr. 02,2010 12:04

name: David

comments:

Let's make ethanol from dedicated energy crops, like Miscanthus or Switchgrass. Grown on marginal land and 2-3 X the yield. No affect on food supply and better utilization of land.

submitted: Feb. 07,2008 09:02

name: Sue

comments:



I couldn't agree more. Bravo!!