More in this section Ethanol Production and Distribution Ethanol is a domestically produced alternative fuel most commonly made from corn. Production The production method of ethanol depends on the type of feedstock used. Starch- and Sugar-Based Ethanol Production Most ethanol in the United States is produced from starch-based crops by dry- or wet-mill processing.
Cellulosic Production Making ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks—such as grass, wood, and crop residues—is a more involved process than using starch-based crops. Schematic of Fuel Distribution System Enlarge illustration. Ethanol Plants, Capacity, and Production. High fructose corn syrup is made of either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, with the remaining sugars being primarily glucose and higher sugars.
HFCS is nearly identical to table sugar sucrose , which is made of 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. Glucose is one of the simplest forms of sugar that serves as a building block for most carbohydrates.
Fructose is a simple sugar commonly found in fruits and honey. Research shows there is little difference between HFCS and any other sweeteners. It adds calories in the same way that sugar, fruit juice concentrate and honey add calories to foods and drinks. They all contribute the same number of calories per gram. The scientific community and people who know sweeteners and nutrition, agree that HFCS and sucrose are metabolically equivalent and that all sweeteners should be consumed in moderation.
Genetic management and selective breeding have been used for centuries. As farmers and ranchers work to meet the daunting challenge of feeding an exploding global population, they continue to grow more with less — less water, less land, less fertilizer and pesticides and less impact on the environment.
But they are not an end-all solution, just another tool in an increasingly robust toolbox. Genetic modification simply refers to human intervention to create a different genetic combination to create a desired outcome. Biotechnology allows researchers to create gene combinations that result in diversity and enhanced performance. The focus in agriculture is to help plants, including corn plants, overcome stresses and challenges that keep them from achieving their full genetic potential.
Creating the 15 billion gallons required under the RFS-2 would call for 5. These distillers grains can be used to replace corn in the diets of cattle, swine, and poultry. Throughout history, the United States has seen a steady increase in the yields of both corn and ethanol production.
It is very likely that the United States will be able to increase corn ethanol production without expanding to new acres and still have plenty of corn remaining to meet other domestic use and export demands. Corn Zea mays originated in Central America with the first domestication, purported to be in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico.
Spreading throughout the North American continent, corn became an important crop for early Americans. At its peak in , million acres of corn were planted in the United States Gibson and Benson, Today corn is planted on every continent in the world except Antarctica and is grown throughout many states in the United States, ranging from southern North Dakota to Texas and eastward to New York. To produce grain, corn will use approximately 22 to 28 inches of water, which requires 12 to 20 inches of rainfall or irrigation during the growing season Al-Kaisi, ; Hoeft et al.
Many parts of the upper Midwest are well suited to grow corn, and this area is sometimes referred to as the Corn Belt. Corn in the upper Midwest is seeded between March and May and harvested between September and November in most years.
A majority of corn planted today has genetic resistance to some weeds, insects, and plant pathogens. Corn hybrid resistance to various pests and pathogens is a result of biotechnology and plant breeding. Biotechnology traits aid producers in the control of weeds and insects, greatly reducing the amount of pesticides entering the environment Brookes and Barfoot, But it would completely disrupt food supplies, livestock feed, and many poor economies in the Western Hemisphere because the U.
Seventy percent of all corn imports worldwide come from the U. Simply implementing mandatory vehicle fuel efficiencies of 40 mpg would accomplish much more, much faster, with no collateral damage. In , the U. The grain required to fill a gallon gas tank with ethanol can feed one person for a year, so the amount of corn used to make that 13 billion gallons of ethanol will not feed the almost million people it was feeding in This is the entire population of the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States.
In , the global price of corn doubled as a result of an explosion in ethanol production in the U. Because corn is the most common animal feed and has many other uses in the food industry, the price of milk, cheese, eggs, meat, corn-based sweeteners and cereals increased as well.
World grain reserves dwindled to less than two months, the lowest level in over 30 years. Additional unintended effects from the increase in ethanol production include the dramatic rise in land rents, the increase in natural gas and chemicals used for fertilizers, over-pumping of aquifers like the Ogallala that serve many mid-western states, clear-cutting forests to plant fuel crops, and the revival of destructive practices such as edge tillage.
Edge tillage is planting right up to the edge of the field thereby removing protective bordering lands and increasing soil erosion, chemical runoff and other problems.
It took us 40 years to end edge tillage in this country, and overnight ethanol brought it back with a vengeance. Most fuel crops, such as sugar cane, have problems similar to corn. Because Brazil relied heavily on imported oil for transportation, but can attain high yields from crops in their tropical climate, the government developed the largest fuel ethanol program in the world in the s based on sugar cane and soybeans.
Unfortunately, Brazil is clear-cutting almost a million acres of tropical forest per year to produce biofuel from these crops, and shipping much of the fuel all the way to Europe.
These unintended effects are why energy policy and development must proceed holistically, considering all effects on global environments and economies. So why have we pushed corn ethanol so heavily here in the U. Primarily because it was the only crop that had the existing infrastructure to easily modify for this purpose, especially when initially incentivized with tax credits, subsidies and import tariffs.
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