June 24, 2010
USDA: Farm efficiencies boost ethanol energy balance
Published in Des Moines Register
Corn ethanol is showing a better energy balance mainly because of increased efficiencies in growing corn but also because of improvements in the distilleries, according to the Agriculture Department.
“It’s a combination of all the new technologies,” including slow-release fertilizers, biotech seeds and more efficient irrigation that reduce the amount of energy needed to produce the corn, said USDA economist Hosein Shapouri. At the same time, ethanol plants are cutting back on their energy needs as well, he said.
Ethanol produced by a typical dry-grind plant delivers about two times as much energy as it takes to grow the corn and make the fuel, according to a USDA analysis. The energy balance of ethanol can be as high as 2.8 times the amount of energy needed to produce it, if the fuel is made in a plant that is powered by biomass.
In a 2004 study, the net energy balance was about 1.8.
Some caveats: The 16 plants that participated in the latest survey were generally using newer technology, Shapouri said. The 2004 survey included 28 ethanol plants and included some wet mills, plants that use more energy than dry-grind operations but have higher-value byproducts such as corn gluten.
The report said the 16 plants that responded to the latest survey were “marginally enough” to make the results meaningful.
“Ethanol has made the transition from an energy sink, to a moderate net energy gain in the 1990s,, to a substantial net energy gain in the present. And ....
