We tend to romanticize the past. In reality many things are better today than they ever have been. In the case of fuel ethanol, if your image of production and plants is ‘corn squeezins’ and moonshine stills, you are in desperate need of a tour of one of the 198 “biorefineries” in the United States.
“Biorefinery” is an appropriate term for modern corn-to-ethanol plants. The approach can be compared to a petroleum refinery—short the global socio-economic and environmental headaches often associated with crude oil. Like oil refineries cracking barrels of crude into a slate of petroleum co-products, today’s biorefineries fractionate corn kernels and employ ever-advancing biology to improve and diversify the ethanol co-product stream. They are sophisticated, high-tech and highly efficient.
US ethanol production increased dramatically in the last twenty years. Technologies have also ramped as companies have competed both within the industry and global fuel and feed markets. Today, the two hottest areas of advancement are in process enzymes and high protein products.
We asked an ethanol industry leader what technology he thought showed most promise in process efficiency. His answer came without hesitation.
“That’s easy, enzymes. Most of the leading plants are pushing three gallons of ethanol per bushel now. Theoretically, part of that is being derived from cellulose with new enzymes. Our plant has touched the three-gallon mark on a monthly basis, and we know we aren’t the industry best. It’s been a slow steady progression in enzyme technology—and yeasts. They are getting better and better.”
Another industry insider shared that in addition to more ethanol per bushel, diversification of co-products and high protein products will be key to future profitability. “The thought is that with the importance of protein, ultimately, co-products could have higher value to the plant than the fuel. Green Plains is one company that is banking on high protein products. There are a bunch of companies pushing process advancements … ICM, D3MAX and White Dog Labs to name just a few.”
Detractors have argued ethanol requires more energy to produce than we realize from it, which simply isn’t true. All fuels require input energy to extract, convert and deliver them to us in usable forms. After all, we can’t drip oil in our car’s fuel tank or sprinkle coal on your laptop to make them run. Raw feedstocks are converted to electricity that arrives at our wall outlet or as liquid fuel at the pump. It all requires energy to happen.
To help underscore ethanol’s efficiency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture periodically reviews the energy balance of ethanol production. Their latest survey pegs the ratio at 2.1 to 2.3 usable units of energy in a gallon of ethanol for every unit of energy used to produce that gallon, including the growing of the crops and the whole process. That “extra” energy is captured by the corn from the sun as it grows and is made available for our use when it is converted into ethanol and other coproducts. The best example, an Iowa ethanol plant near its coproduct end-users, had an impressive energy balance ratio of 4.0.
We remind detractors that modern ethanol biorefineries are …not your grand pappy’s moonshine still.