Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn

[Barry Digman]

Interesting update on what a lot of folks have been saying.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn

[MapMan]

Shame on Scientific American. The article title suggests that there is a "better" ethanol. I then envisioned that scientists had broken molecular structure and developed a "better" ethanol... sort of like gene slicing and splicing... but alas, the molecule is the same, and it isn't a "better" ethanol after all. The "better" is actually referring to the efficiency of growing, harvesting (and this is only a hunch: the production, as there are currently no cellulosic biorefineries in the U.S.) of ethanol from switchgrass versus corn.

Perhaps a "better" title for the article: Switchgrass: A Better Source of Ethanol

MM

Actually, we'd be better off burning pellets made from switchgrass.

[Hobie]

Not true! The key lies in the heating value (amount of BTUs you can get out of a certain material). For example, you can't directly compare the cost of propane vs fuel oil. Burning propane generates ~71,000 BTU/gallon. Burning Fuel oil (#2) generates ~115,000 BTU/gallon. Therefore you have to burn more propane to keep your house equally as warm. You have to do the math to see if the economics work out.

Same thing with corn-ethanol and switchgrass ethanol. Things get a little tougher because the units are often different in published data. Switchgrass offers 14.4 million BTU/ton. Corn gives you 314,000 BTU/bushel. Now if you can figure out how to make that apples and apples, you have your answer.

Source: http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/fuel-value-calculator.pdf

The fact that switchgrass is easy to grow, does not use tons of fertilizer (which is, uh, petroleum based - a little fact that no one bothers to mention) , and does not deplete the soil into a vast wasteland, is just a bonus.

[dcross]

Corn is 56# to a bushel, which should work out to about 11 million btu's per ton.

[sqkcrk]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought that someone had come up with a new twist on the war on drugs.

[MapMan]

The fact that switchgrass is easy to grow, does not use tons of fertilizer (which is, uh, petroleum based - a little fact that no one bothers to mention) , and does not deplete the soil into a vast wasteland, is just a bonus.

Not as much of a bonus as you might think. If I don't fertilize my hayfields -- though not nearly as much as corn(!) -- the amount I cut dwindles to about 1/2 or 1/3 of optimum production over the course of four to five years. Soil becomes depleted into a wasteland faster than you might think, even with biomass cropping.

But, I've never been a proponent of corn to ethanol production. The cost of feed is now very high, consequently beef, poultry, etc. is much higher... Let's find a way to produce biomass economically to either ethanol (or better yet, biogas - methane), and we are in a win-win situation. Producing ethanol from corn is insanely costly.

MM

[randydrivesabus]

Not as much of a bonus as you might think. If I don't fertilize my hayfields -- though not nearly as much as corn(!) -- the amount I cut dwindles to about 1/2 or 1/3 of optimum production over the course of four to five years. Soil becomes depleted into a wasteland faster than you might think, even with biomass cropping.

But, I've never been a proponent of corn to ethanol production. The cost of feed is now very high, consequently beef, poultry, etc. is much higher... Let's find a way to produce biomass economically to either ethanol (or better yet, biogas - methane), and we are in a win-win situation. Producing ethanol from corn is insanely costly.

MM
but insanely profitable for big Ag corps, big chemical corps, and big oil corps.

[Bizzybee]

"But, I've never been a proponent of corn to ethanol production. The cost of feed is now very high, consequently beef, poultry, etc. is much higher..."

How does this figure into the equation when our farmers are going under because meat is being imported at rock bottom prices. Yet our cost at the retail level is soaring. Seems to me this argument is only used by the retail markets to raise prices. The tactic has worked for years, when comparing our pricing to costs associated from our own production woes, while retailers import all of our goods from underdeveloped countries using slave labor or sweat shop equivalent labor at the least. While the only people benefiting are the retailers. We don't see the savings and we certainly aren't helping the people that are working themselves into their graves to hopefully just keep food in their families stomach.

But still, your point of raising crops with the highest yield and lowest cost to the environment is taken.

[Michael Bush]

Let's see...
Ethanol from corn = CH3-CH2-OH
Ethanol from grass = CH3-CH2-OH
(I would use C2H6O but that could be either ethanol or dimethyl ether)

How is it "better ethanol"?

Of course, the real title should have been "Grass, a better source for ethanol".

Who writes these headlines?

[MapMan]

Let's see...
Ethanol from corn = CH3-CH2-OH
Ethanol from grass = CH3-CH2-OH
(I would use C2H6O but that could be either ethanol or dimethyl ether)

How is it "better ethanol"?

Of course, the real title should have been "Grass, a better source for ethanol".

Who writes these headlines?


MB: I don't think I could have said it better myself. Oh wait! I did say the same thing in #2 above...

MM