It takes energy to grow corn and then convert to ethanol. If you can create more ethanol energy per unit for every unit of fossil fuel used to create it...GREAT!!...now we've got something.

But what I'm saying is LET'S MAKE SURE THAT IS THE CASE!!. Because if it's not, it's just government subsidized corporate welfare which makes us even MORE dependant on foriegn oil.

Mechanized equipment to till/plant runs on petrol
Pesticides are petrol based
Harvesters run on petrol
Transport to distillery-refinery runs on petrol
The "refinery" if it took all of it's energy form electricity is powered by coal or petrol indirectly*

If you ran all the farm equipment on E85, and most importantly if our electricity production was nuclear (like it should be), than the numbers would certainly be better.

Could biofuels be a bonanza for state?

Once a far-off green dream, plant-based fuels could be in gas tanks in less than a decade.

Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau






Morris Richardson II / The Detroit News

"We're not quite there yet, but this is completely realistic," Michigan State's Bruce Dale says of biomass fuels. See full image

Related links

Ford shows off new Escape hybrid that can run on ethanol
Toyota exec says industry must take the lead on saving fuel
John McCormick: Are automakers building 'relevant' vehicles?
Alternative fuel production may depend on geography
Bush sees green in future of Big Three



Printer friendly version
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
WASHINGTON -- Rising gas prices, technological breakthroughs and a push by President Bush are combining to make some experts think that in as little as six years, many Americans will be driving cars powered by fuels made of such things as switchgrass, wood chips and corn stalks.

The potential of ethanol biofuels has huge implications for Michigan, home of the Big Three automakers as well as rich farmland that is already the second-biggest income generator in the state.

"I've believed for a long time that this day would come," says Bruce Dale, the director of the Biomass Conversion Laboratory at Michigan State University, which for a decade has researched how to cheaply produce ethanol fuel from fast-growing crops like switchgrass or plant debris, just as is done with corn today. Switchgrass, sawdust and corn stalks are just a few examples of abundant, renewable organic matter -- known as cellulosic biomass -- that scientists want to turn into fuel because corn requires large areas of land to grow and is used for human and animal food.

"We're not quite there yet, but this is completely realistic."

Bruce Noel, a corn farmer outside Lansing who is chairman of the National Corn Growers Association's ethanol committee, says biofuels -- added to other cutting-edge uses of plants to make green substitutes for plastic containers, paints and antifreeze -- could eventually make agriculture outpace manufacturing as Michigan's biggest economic engine.

The latest interest in plant-based fuels dates back to Henry Ford's Model T, which could run on ethanol. But petroleum, which in the early days of the automobile was both cheap and plentiful, won out as America's choice to power its vehicles.

That could change, in large part by a boost from Bush, who in his recent State of the Union address spoke what may come to be known as five of the most influential words of his presidency: "America is addicted to oil."

Bush then delivered a mini-crash course to Middle America on how humble plants could wean the nation off oil imports from the volatile Middle East.

He backed up his confidence with cash: He proposed to boost research funding to $120 million in 2007 -- double that of just two years ago, and a big statement given Bush's effort to halve the budget deficit.

But the surge of interest in biofuels worries some scientists who scoff at rosy but as-yet-unrealized scenarios and worry that the country's insatiable appetite for fuel could turn fertile U.S. prairie and farmland as well as worldwide tropical jewels into modern equivalents of the 1930s Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

"It's a mixture of wishful thinking, lack of scientific training and downright lies by people who stand to make a lot of money out of this," says Tad Patzek, a professor of geo-engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

"People are making outrageous assumptions."

Thinking it through

Environmentalists, while largely supportive of the move away from dirty fossil fuels, want to add much higher fuel economy standards to the mix.

"Just as we can't drill our way out of oil dependence, we can't grow our way out, either," says Don MacKenzie, a vehicles engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Because corn requires so much land to grow and is a critical food supply, its limitations are clear.

Production of corn-based ethanol is expected to rise from today's 4.3 billion gallons annually to peak at about 14 billion gallons.

That's far from the 140 billion gallons of petroleum used by Americans each year.

But production of biomass fuels, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Energy, could reach 60 billion gallons annually.

A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council concludes that biofuels -- combined with smart-growth urban planning and higher fuel economy standards -- could "virtually eliminate" the need for gasoline by 2050.

The new-generation biomass ethanol isn't expected to be commercially viable for at least six years. That's because it's harder -- and right now much more costly -- to make fuel from cellulosic materials than from corn grain.

Dale, of MSU, and other scientists are searching for a combination of pretreatments, enzymes and micro-organisms needed to break down cellulosic matter into sugars easily and cheaply.

Finally, a full-scale biorefinery must be built -- for about $250 million -- to demonstrate that what eventually works smoothly in the lab can also work in the real world.

Meanwhile, potential changes in engine design will help narrow the gap between how far a gallon of gas versus ethanol will power a vehicle. Ethanol achieves only 70 percent of the distance of gas, but that is expected to rise to 80 percent with engines designed for ethanol rather than gasoline, vehicle analysts say.

Corn's stock grows

Assuming the kinks are worked out, biomass fuels would easily piggyback off their corn-based ethanol parent's growing success.

The Big Three are positioning themselves to benefit from the growing use of corn-based ethanol in the 5 million flex-fuel vehicles already on U.S. roads that can run on E85, a mix of 15 percent gas and 85 percent corn-based ethanol.

General Motors Co., for example, unveiled the first ethanol TV ad during the Super Bowl. Urging viewers to "Live Green -- Go Yellow," it pitched its flex-fuel vehicles to environment-friendly consumers.

In addition, federal and state lawmakers are looking for ways to boost ethanol availability.

Michigan farmers have one ethanol plant in production in Caro and four more planned to open in 2007.

Environmentalists warn that modern farming has already made land only 50 percent as rich in organic matter as when the country was founded.

Removing plant debris to use as biomass fuel could further degrade the quality of the soil, they say.

Wally Wilhelm, a plant physiologist at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Nebraska, and other soil experts are looking for farming practices to protect the soil from being stripped of vital nutrients and organic matter in the production of biofuels.

"We need to ask all the right questions about soil up front to make sure we don't make grave errors in the development of biofuels," Wilhelm said.