Farm Blog Week 11

Is corn used to produce ethanol or is just a myth.  Ethanol is no longer net energy negative and here are two key reasons why.  Corn production has increased drastically.  Farmers now grow 160 bushels per acre per day.  Back in the 1980's farmers were only growing 95 bushels per acre per day.  The corn production is continuing to increase.   Ethanol production has become more energy efficient.  Ethanol production used to go through a wet milling process that used a lot of energy.  Now the production goes through a dry milling process which uses far less energy.  The combination of an increase in corn per acre and energy reduction has resulted in a popular energy output.  The gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn has also increased by fifty percent.

People are frustrated because they think that growing this corn and producing it into ethanol is reducing our food production.  This is false due to one percent of corn grown in this Country is eaten by humans.  The rest of corn production, which is NO. 2 yellow field corn, is indigestible to humans.  This corn production is used in animal feed, food supplements and ethanol.  Food - versus - fuel debate has sprouted additional research and development of second - generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, which does not use food crops.  Instead cellulosic ethanol is made from the "woody" structure material in plants that humans cannot use.  The benefit to this second - generation biofuel is that cellulosic ethanol crops a grow in any soil that will maintain grass.

          Ethanol requires too much water to produce?  False because the amount of water used to make ethanol has decreased drastically.  Today, producing one gallon of ethanol required about 3.5 gallons of water.  That’s just a little more than it takes to process a gallon of gasoline.  Much of the water requirements come from the need to irrigate feed stock crops in drier climates.  With this concern research has shown ethanol production mainly comes from rain fall in the Midwest.  Additionally, ethanol does not poison groundwater or the ocean.  Ethanol has low toxicity due to it rapidly biodegrading.  Some people probably consume ethanol at in their lives.  You will find ethanol in beer, bourbon and other happy-hour beverages.  

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https://www.wired.com/2011/06/five-ethanol-myths-busted-2/