Switchgrass Makes Better Ethanol Than Corn

statemachine writes to mention that the USDA and farmers took part in a 5-year study of switchgrass, a grass native to North America. The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent. "But even a native prairie grass needs a helping hand from scientists and farmers to deliver the yields necessary to help ethanol become a viable alternative to petroleum-derived gasoline, Vogel argues. 'To really maximize their yield potential, you need to provide nitrogen fertilization,' he says, as well as improved breeding techniques and genetic strains. 'Low input systems are just not going to be able to get the energy per acre needed to provide feed, fuel and fiber.'"

Almost anything is better than corn

[gujo-odori (473191)]

Almost anything is better than corn. Corn is only popular in the US because corn farming has a powerful lobby. Sugarcane and practically anything else commonly used to produce ethanol is better than corn.

Re:Almost anything is better than corn

[Surt (22457)]

Please, please let it be sugar cane. Real candy is so much better than corn syrup candy.

Re:Almost anything is better than corn

[reverseengineer (580922)]

Actually, a major reason why high fructose corn syrup is the sweetener of choice for many American food products is that the U.S. sugar lobby is so strong. Protectionist trade agreements and price floors ensure that Americans pay about double the average world price for sugar, so it's far less expensive to use HFCS than cane sugar.

Re:Almost anything is better than corn

[Lost Engineer (459920)]

If there's no corn lobby then why all the subsidies? Any economist will tell you we don't need them.

Re:Almost anything is better than corn

[Jeremi (14640)]

That is so funny that I almost fell out of my seat. Corn prices have stayed fairly constant for the past three decades. I am not talking about being adjusted for inflation. If the corn farmers have a powerful lobby then that must mean that lobbiest truly have no power at all. (not the case)

Congratulations, you are a master of the non sequiter. The price of corn is not a good measurement of the power of the agribusiness lobby -- what you want to measure is how much influence they have over legislators. It's difficult to measure influence directly, of course, but what can be objectively measured is how much money agribusiness donates to politicians. And there we find that in the last 20 years or so, agribusiness has donated a total of 415 million dollars [opensecrets.org]. To put that in perspective, that is over three times the amount donated by defense lobbyists [opensecrets.org] in the same time period, and I don't think anyone would scoff at the influence of defense lobbyists on our government. So yes, I'd say the agribusiness sector (note I deliberately don't say "farmers" because what we are talking about here are massive farming corporations like Archer Daniels Midland [admworld.com], not mom and pop and their 40 acres) has plenty of influence in Washington. Which is of course why so many government handouts are going to corn-based ethanol, even though corn is clearly one of the least efficient sources for that product.

Wrong study.

[Tackhead (54550)]

> The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent

"The polling firm found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver only 0.54% of the voter cast in the states capable of producing it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can yield around 24% of the votes cast in the states that produce it."

It's not about EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment), it's about PEOPI (Politicians Elected On Pork Invested).

Switchfoot Makes Better Music Than Korn

[kernspaltung (975145)]

Switchfoot makes better music than Korn, too, but such opinion is no more revolutionary than the one in the article. Ethanol IS NOT the cure for our energy disease.

Re:Switchfoot Makes Better Music Than Korn

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Ethanol is a good way to extend our comfortable behavior with little downside.

Except it's not, really. If it was, I'd be a much bigger fan. But it's really just a red herring; a way of pulling the wool over the public's eyes, continuing to empower the oil companies, while also pumping some taxpayer dollars into the agribusiness and farm lobbies.

I've only looked at corn ethanol in much detail, but that stuff requires MORE oil to produce, per unit of burnable energy (that you can actually pump into your car), than gasoline does. It gets fertilized with oil, harvested with tractors that run on oil, transported with oil ... by the time it gets to your tank, it would have been better just to use the stupid oil to begin with. At least the oil companies have an incentive, when they crack petroleum to make gasoline directly, to do it efficiently. When you're going oil->fertilizer->corn->ethanol->gasohol, with tons of subsidies along the way, the efficiency motive gets lost. It's not even carbon neutral -- it just makes you think it's carbon-neutral (and might let you *call* it that, depending on who's doing the accounting).

Maybe switchgrass is a little better than corn, but I have some serious reservations, and this study doesn't dispel them (considered how deep in the pockets of ADM and the oil companies the government is). Show me a large-scale ethanol process, sunlight-to-tank, that doesn't take petroleum as an input and then I'll be much more impressed. So far I haven't seen one that seems practical.

The Ethanol debate is NOT about fuel!

[compumike (454538)]

It's true that corn is a pretty poor feedstock for ethanol generation. But I think most people (farmer subsidy lovers) think that ethanol has come into focus because of its potential as a fuel *replacement* for gasoline.

Let me remind you why we have a demand for ethanol in the first place: a replacement for MTBE [wikipedia.org], a gasoline anti-knock additive (letting the engine run at higher compression ratios, and thus more efficiently) which was found to be leeching into groundwater and concentrating. MTBE is being phased out, and ethanol is a replacement chemical. Whether or not ethanol will be used as an energy source is irrelevant. It's critical today as a fuel additive for gasoline. Beyond that, it's a pretty inefficient energy carrier. Switchgrass may do better, but we're not there yet.

--
Electronics kits for the digital generation! Free videos -- click here. [nerdkits.com]

President George W. Bush Was Right?

[SirBruce (679714)]

So let me get this straight... when President Bush championed swithgrass in his State of the Union speech a couple of years ago, and the news folks sorta laughed at him, he was actually right?

Re:President George W. Bush Was Right?

[thule (9041)]

If I recall correctly, Bush mentioned a lot of good common sense things for energy back then, switchgrass was only one of the things mentioned. Didn't Bush also mention nuclear power plants? I wonder when people will also wake up to that idea again. I know here in California, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has tried to put in bills for lifting the restrictions on nuclear power in California. So far, no luck.

bad summary: 25% vs 125%

[j1m+5n0w (749199)]

This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

If I'm interpreting this right, it means corn ethanol is returning 125%, not 24% as the summary implies. Also, switchgrass requires refineries that can deal with cellulose, which we don't have. (Not that I'm saying that switchgrass or miscanthus based ethanol is a bad idea, just that the summary is misleading.)

Hmm...

[richardtallent (309050)]

Unfortunately, I don't see any candidates supporting the "Big Switchgrass" lobby (lol) with federal grants and subsidies.

The government is *ALWAYS* ten years late on supporting technology, and usually picks the wrong one. Same situation with PV, hybrid cars, and nuclear power... about the time some lobbyist gets enough "representatives" to sign on to some legislation that makes their life easy, a new start-up or breakthrough makes them obsolete.

One more reason to vote for someone who believes that open markets will drive innovation a lot faster than corporate/agricultural welfare, and that states can be more responsive when government needs to have a role.

I know, I'm yet another rabid Ron Paul supporter. But at least if we elect him, hemp will have a chance to compete with switchgrass. Which will be great, except your car will have the munchies and will insist on calling you "dude" and "bro" when your door is ajar. ;)

When your application doesn't work, refactor the code.
When the government doesn't work, refactor the system.

Aye, but it's more expensive at this point

[iamlucky13 (795185)]

This has been circulating around the intarwebs for a few days now, so it spurred me to do some background reading already.

Corn has higher amounts of the simpler sugars that bacteria need to work on to produce the ethanol. Switchgrass and other cellulosic feedstocks, which are largely equivalent in feasbility in general terms, have those sugars bound up in...you guessed it...cellulose. Because of this it requires much more processing prior to fermentation. There are several ways to do this with varying costs and efficiencies, but at the very least is technically viable.

However, this pre-processing and the fact that large-scale cellulosic ethanol production is a new technology means the initial costs are higher. According to Wikipedia (with original sources referenced), corn ethanol plants cost about $1-3 per gallon of annual capacity to construct. The first round of large scale cellulosic ethanol plants now under construction are billed about $7 per gallon of annual capacity. Production costs are expected to run about $2.25 per gallon initially, or about $125 per barrel of oil energy equivalent.

However, as the method is proven, that cost is expected to come down. About $350 million of cost is also being funded by the federal government under the new energy plan. Also, the cost of the feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production is much lower, as it can use switchgrass as mentioned in the summary, corn stover, wood chips, or just about anything else containing plant matter, where as the corn method requires corn (duh), and thus competes with food production.

Of course, the article makes the energy-return benefit over corn ethanol obvious. Elsewhere it has been estimated that cellulosic ethanol production could account for 30% of our transportation energy needs in a couple decades. Obviously far short of weaning us off foreign oil, but a start nonetheless. However, an added benefit of using grasses like switchgrass is the fields don't have to be replanted every year, reducing soil depletion and erosion.

Remember...

[Billy the Mountain (225541)]

Ethanol is for drinking, not for driving.

Re:Switchgrass is a one trick pony.

[nonsequitor (893813)]

However switch grass can be farmed on less desirable farmland than corn, which leads me to believe that it will become a cash crop. This is just a preliminary strain of the grass and this experiment was to establish a baseline for future comparison. Something this heavily modified genetically I would not want to eat anyway so its a moot point.

Re:Switchgrass is a one trick pony.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Growing corn gets you fuel and food.

Growing corn gets you fuel, OR food. Farms aren't going to use the same crop to produce fuel and food-- they'll produce one or the other.

Also, should your fuel sources be competing with your food sources?

Growing hemp gets you fuel, food, and fiber.

Hemp doesn't produce a sizable amount of food.

Re:Switchgrass is a one trick pony.

[sl0ppy (454532)]

except that many hops farmers have switched from farming hops on their premium farm land, to farming inefficient corn, thus driving up the price of beer.

it's hard for something to be "free, as in beer" when a bottle of beer is very expensive to make due to a hops shortage.

it never makes sense to burn our food.

Re:Switchgrass is a one trick pony.

[nine-times (778537)]

I don't know about hemp, but according to the summary:

The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent.

This means that corn gets you negative amounts of fuel (you'll use more farming it than you'll get out of farming it), while switchgrass gets you fuel.

The only reason corn has been chosen as the main crop for getting ethanol in the US is because of the strong cron lobby. It really isn't a feasible energy *source*, since it uses more energy than it produces.

Re:You can grow all three you know.

[cromar (1103585)]

Hemp seed is actually really healthy [nutiva.com] and contains good amounts of all essential amino acids (and so is high in protein). It provides some iron, good amounts of manganese and magnesium, and is also a good source of omega-3 and -6 fatty acids. Hemp seeds are good for salad toppings, baking, etc (think multi-grain bread). Hemp oil is also highly nutritious and can be used as other vegetable oils are.

It's a shame that prohibition drives the seed prices through the roof.

Follow the carbon

[tepples (727027)]

...how switching one hydrocarbon for another (ethanol being two carbons, five hydrogens, and a hydroxyl group) will solve man-made global warming?

The production of fuel from dead dinosaurs pulls carbon from the ground. The production of fuel from plants pulls carbon from the air.

Re:Would someone please explain to me...

[Surt (22457)]

When you replace oil with ethanol, you stop using carbon that was fixed a long time in the past (and thus did not contribute to present levels of co2), and instead use carbon that was fixed in the last growing cycle. The net co2 added to the atmosphere in a year is zero, because the corn/switchgrass has to fix the co2 before you can later release it in the burn cycle.

Re:Would someone please explain to me...

[primalamn (716272)]

Because you are no using hydrocarbon that are in carbon sinks [oil] that would almost never see the light of day had we not dug it up. By using something like cellulose or grains, you have a carbon cycle. You grow the plant, which takes carbon from the air to grow, becoming the carbon holder, then you use it, releasing the carbon. But when the next crop is grown, the plant uses the carbon you emitted using the fuel from the last crop.

Now, I am sure it is not a net-zero result, probably a net-gain in carbon, but you are at least using something that can take much of the carbon that is emitted for use back to make a new plant.

And IMHO, anything is better than using resource heavy and subsidy heavy corn for ethanol and bio-diesel.

Re:Balance

[CorSci81 (1007499)]

since temps haven't risen in over a decade.

This really depends on what temperature statistic you're talking about. Global annual mean? That's actually fairly variable on a year-to-year basis, but it is certainly hasn't been going down much in the long-term lately. And then you have things like the accelerating melting of the arctic sea ice that make it pretty clear something is going on. While the details of end result is still up in the air, it's pretty idiotic to think you can more than double the concentration of a significant greenhouse gas with zero effect on climate.

You are ignoring . . .

[StefanJ (88986)]

. . . the giant glowing thing in the sky.