Alternative Fuel Duel is Ending
Cellulosic Ethanol Puts Food vs. Fuel Debate to Rest, Expert Says
Dec 13, 2008
Amid a growing assumption that cheaper gas is a temporary anomaly and that gas futures could well skyrocket depending on economic developments, the debate over ethanol stocks and alternative fuel vehicles is likely far from over.
What appears to have dwindled considerably, though, is the former furor over corn ethanol as the renewable fuel of the future. The probable reason, according to at least one expert, is the imminent development of a fledgling cellulosic ethanol production industry.
Cellulosic Ethanol Market Won't Compete with Food
The former controversy focused on the purported diversion of corn from use as a food source to its use in ethanol fuel. This supposed shift has been blamed for food shortages and rising food prices the world over. Though even its supporters have acknowledged that corn is not the most efficient ethanol feedstock because other sources yield more fermentable sugars, they argue that by far the bulk of Western corn crops are raised for animal feed rather than food for humans.
One expert, in fact, points out that the entire debate over corn ethanol versus corn for food is an empty argument. In Energy Victory (Prometheus Books, 2007) engineer-scientist Robert Zubrin notes that ethanol producers use only the starch fraction of the corn, which is then converted into fermentable sugars that ethanol plants turn into fuel. The remaining corn byproduct still provides ample feed for livestock.
Debate Over Producing Ethanol Disappears
Ethanol expert Bruce Dale, a chemical engineering professor at Michigan State University, says cellulosic ethanol makes the food versus fuel debate disappear. Using stems, leaves, stalks, trunks and other waste products from plants and trees, cellulosic ethanol companies will turn byproducts like crop stubble and wood chips into an alternative fuel source that will be capable of producing renewable fuels indefinitely.
Dale expects cellulosic energy crops such as grasses and wood to become the focus of efforts to increase their yields. These crops can be grown on marginal agricultural land that isn’t currently used for food production. Even residues from animal feed crops will be useful in cellulosic ethanol processing, providing another potential cash crop for farmers. The new revenue source provides incentive to increase yield, so producing ethanol from cellulosic materials can be expected to increase world food supplies, Dale suggests.
Alternative Fuel Source Uses Marginal Cropland
In the U.S. alone 25 million acres of cropland could feed the nation, Dale says, leaving the remainder of the 500 million acres of arable land to grow more feedstock for both food and ethanol production. Dale and colleagues have developed a procedure to make cellulose more readily convertible into fermentable materials, speeding the ethanol processing cycle.
If Zubrin and Dale are right, ethanol investments and alternative fuel cars may be popular leaders in the efforts to reinvigorate world economies and realize energy independence based on renewable fuels.
Source: With cellulosic ethanol, there is no food vs. fuel debate according to MSU scientist. MSU News. March 27, 2007.
