In my ever self-serving quest to keep corn prices high (LOL) I unveil to you a link I have found highlighting a NEW process for making ethanol, one that makes fuel out of the corn, as well as leaving a food-grade by-product high in protein and fit for human consumption. This process also allows the use of some of the rest of the corn plant (besides just the grain) so some cellulose ethanol can be made at the same time in the same plant. This technology is here now, and can be up & going full scale by 2012. Combine this with new technology that reduces the energy required to produce a gallon of ethanol by 1/3 and we may be finally onto something good.
The only bad news is the people I have talked to who tried the stuff (edible by-product) say it brings a new meaning to the term 'bland'.

Link: food-and-fuel.com/foodANDfuel.html

I think using our food to make fuel is stupid because I don't want to starve to fill my truck.

pagerboy wrote:

I think using our food to make fuel is stupid because I don't want to starve to fill my truck.

RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me tell y'all something. The world is only hungry because of a very poor food distribution system. Only a few years ago, world stocks of most grains were very high and commodity prices were in the toilet. Who benefited from that? Not the farmer, or the farm supply companies, or the people working to serve the farm supply companies, or the folks working for the farm machinery manufacturing companies, or the crop protection companies....when the farmer has no profit, the margins of all other products and services that feed into that enormous system worth billions upon billions of dollars called the global agricultural industry, get eroded, plants close, people get no cost of living raises or lose their jobs, and the whole global economy suffers.

A land owner has the RIGHT to chose to grow whatever they want on thier land. As a laborer, you can choose, as it is your right, to work for whatever company you want. Why does anyone think a farmer should not have the same rights to toil his land and produce whatever he can to make a profit for he and his family (of course, we are talking about LEGAL labor and legal crops here...don't confuse the issue with making comments about growing or selling pot etc...)

I've maintained for many years as a life long professional in the Ag industry that a good portion of farmland has been going to waste growing food, too much food that clogged the global food stocks. Why would perfectly good grains be dumped by the barge load into the ocean once the EU has paid it's farmers huge subsidies to grow it? Because there was too much. A certain percentage of farm land should be used to grow industrial products such as hemp and oil/grains for biodiesel or ethenol, among a whole host of other bio-engineered products that could be used in the medical industry.

No one in North America is ever going to starve because of bio-diesel or ethenol production using up some of the land base's production of grains. However, poor distribution systems and innequalities in economies that negatively impact the third world countries does indeed make it more difficult to get them the food they need...most often you should blame the high price of transporting the food to them, as that is one of the most expensive and cost prohibitive factors that prevent them from getting a ready supply of imported food grains. Blame global oil demand for that, and $145 oil, not the grain farmer producing ethanol destined crops.

Read the article, it leaves a food-grade high-protein edible by-product AFTER producing the ethanol. But even if it did, no one you know is going to go hungry dut to there not being enough food.

Even at FULL ethanol production, there is enough corn in the U.S. to last to the end of this year, with over 3/4 of a BILLION buushels (Something like 753,000,000 if I remember right).
Multiply that times 56 pounds per bushel, I come up with 42,168,000,000 pounds of corn left over before this next harvest starts.
If that isn't enough to fill you up, there is still wheat, rice, and oats.

The BIGGEST reason that the price of corn is way up is because the cost to PRODUCE a bushel of corn has gone way up. It now costs me about 2 1/2 times what it did to raise a bushel of corn than it did 2-3 years ago. My selling price is just under 3X what it was 3 years ago. The farmers aren't making what people think they are. With a cost of (in round numbers) $4 per bushel to raise corn, don't expect to be buying it much below $4.50 - $500 any time soon. If corn prices get driven down to $3.50 or less, then you may see a REAL grain shortage, and it won't be pretty. Right now prices are high, but you can still buy all you want.

http://www.startribune.com/local/15403981.html
So what does it cost to make one litre(gallon) of ethanol compared to regular gas.

Farmr123 wrote:

Read the article, it leaves

So I see, Bill Callahan did leave.

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a food-grade high-protein edible by-product

Found a lot of that on the ground around Lincoln after the Kansas game last year come to think of it.

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AFTER producing the ethanol.

Producing? What about the headaches it gave you after CONSUMING the ethanol?

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But even if it did

But no "But even"'s! Too much ethanol equals 27-22!


So... who's your new coach?

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no one you know

Really? Well... what do you think is going to happen with Callahan?

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is going to go hungry

I can't quite put my finger on it, but the team looked a little lethargic the last few years...

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dut to there not being enough food.

Seriously though, great information Farmr123.
Come one guys, you don't argue with a Husker about corn!

I guess no one knows what the price difference is? And I was wondering about how you make popcorn and ethanol in the same batch?

Our new coach is 'Mr. BO',
Sadly, I don't think Callahan will go hungry. He got more $$$ for doing a poor job than anyone I know of.
Rumor has it that he's going into coaching either skiing or bobsled, as he has experience in making a team go downhill faster than anyone.

Back to the topic. At 1.34+ per liter you might go broke and starve just paying for the gas.

pagerboy wrote:

I guess no one knows what the price difference is? And I was wondering about how you make popcorn and ethanol in the same batch?

Well, yesterday, regular no-lead was $4.07 and e-85 was $3.16

I also noticed in the article that was linked to a few posts up gave no carbon credit for the CO2 that the green corn plants would use. Just an observation.