In Brazil, ethanol fuel is produced from sugar cane which is a more efficient source of fermentable carbohydrates than corn. Brazil has the tropical climate that is required for the productive culture of sugarcane. Brazil has the largest sugar cane crop in the world, and is the largest exporter of ethanol in the world. High government sales taxes on gasoline, as well as government subsidies for ethanol, have cultivated a profitable national ethanol industry. Nearly all fueling stations in Brazil offer a choice of either gasoline type C or hydrated ethanol. Today, Brazil gets more than 30% of its automobile fuels from sugar cane-based ethanol.[1]
Southern Crop For The Future?
- Thread starter MikeC
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hurleyjd
Well-known member
A & M is developing a sorghum that is supposed to work for ethonal. How will they store sorghum to be able to run the plants in the times when there is no sorghum available.
tytower
Well-known member
MikeC- The problem I have seen here in Far Northern Queensland is that the ground gets worked to a fine tilth and planted in year one , its harvested green usually and fertilized and left .
Its harvested in year two , fertilized and left .
Then harvested and the ground re -worked and re-planted in year three again .
What is happening is the yeild is dropping each year and cane that 20 years ago was twice the height of a man at harvest is presently about 7-8 foot and dropping.
Soil is loosing its humus and is looking like a red sand desert even though the ground used to be red soil rainforest.Its fertilized three time each year and the cost of this is eventualy going to stop this practice so yeild will keep dropping in the next 20 years and on.
The sugarcane used to be burnt before harvest for snakes and bugs etc but this is not done now unless its diseased and this leaving of trash on the surface after harvest has helped with the humus problem.
In my opinion just continually cropping any land with one crop with no fallow or other assistive crops kills the land quickly and us too.
This seems to be what is being done all down the Queensland coast and in Brazil.
Its gotta come however that we grow our fuel - and its certainly a leading contender.
Its harvested in year two , fertilized and left .
Then harvested and the ground re -worked and re-planted in year three again .
What is happening is the yeild is dropping each year and cane that 20 years ago was twice the height of a man at harvest is presently about 7-8 foot and dropping.
Soil is loosing its humus and is looking like a red sand desert even though the ground used to be red soil rainforest.Its fertilized three time each year and the cost of this is eventualy going to stop this practice so yeild will keep dropping in the next 20 years and on.
The sugarcane used to be burnt before harvest for snakes and bugs etc but this is not done now unless its diseased and this leaving of trash on the surface after harvest has helped with the humus problem.
In my opinion just continually cropping any land with one crop with no fallow or other assistive crops kills the land quickly and us too.
This seems to be what is being done all down the Queensland coast and in Brazil.
Its gotta come however that we grow our fuel - and its certainly a leading contender.
We've grown cane for four generations on our place and we rotate it so that the soil isn't depleted and we've always done well. We're trying to get an ethanol plant about ten miles down the road that will run on cane, I told my girlfriend that I wanted it (The ethanol plant) for christmas. Maybe I'll get it.
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
This is the next level IMO as the entire south from East Texas to Ga. shore is in pine plantations now.
http://agriculture.georgiainnovation.or ... details/22
And owned by major corporations.
http://agriculture.georgiainnovation.or ... details/22
And owned by major corporations.
flaboy?
Well-known member
Florida Sugar Cane is alive and well and is mainly grown in south Florida now. They have some pretty big political clout here also.
http://www.scgc.org
http://www.scgc.org
Jogeephus
Well-known member
Caustic Burno":2ump3zab said:
I got high hopes on this. Got two coming into our area. Just hope once this issue is out of the political spotlight it doesn't leave a bunch of private investors hanging as it did during the last oil crisis. Yep, we have been down this road once before and a lot of people lost a lot of money.
MikeC
Well-known member
Cane makes more ethanol than corn per acre.Angus/Brangus":24q5hnp0 said:
Plus........ Brazil HAS an extra gazillion acres.
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Paul Krugman has it partly right. He points to the absurdity of thinking ethanol will solve our driving fuel problems
"There is a place for ethanol in the world's energy future — but that place is in the tropics. Brazil has managed to replace a lot of its gasoline consumption with ethanol. But Brazil's ethanol comes from sugar cane. In the United States, ethanol comes overwhelmingly from corn, a much less suitable raw material.
In fact, corn is such a poor source of ethanol that researchers at the University of Minnesota estimate that converting the entire U.S. corn crop — the sum of all our ears — into ethanol would replace only 12 percent of our gasoline consumption."
cowtrek
Well-known member
I think that the farm programs should be tweaked to encourage farmers to plant more energy crops, and the tax breaks and other incentives leaned to support the related infrastructure. I watched a program about sugar in Brazil and they were showing a plant where the liquid sugar was coming out of the unit; they can switch a valve one way and the sugar goes into a dryer and granulator, switch it the other way and it goes straight into the ethanol fermenter. Guess which way it goes most of the time. The International Sugar Compact has artificially held up the price of sugar for a hundred years; without it the price of sugar would have utterly collapsed. Sugar is the most efficient feedstock for ethanol production and using corn (or sorghum and other grains) strictly speaking is a waste.
I live near Sugarland, TX. Know why it is called that? Before WW 2 the main things grown within 30 miles of the place was rice and sugarcane. Hasn't been any sugarcane grown around here in probably 60 years. Rice is getting thin too. The sugar that Imperial Sugar produces comes in by rail for refining from Louisiana and Florida now. Simple fact is that sugarcane could be grown on a vast area across the Deep South and SE TX and could be used as a direct feedstock for ethanol production. The cotton industry is dying a slow painful death and sugarcane should be seriously looked at as an alternative and studies done by extension/universities and such. Every year farmers go under and more and more land is turning into subdivisions, and a lot of that land would be suitable for growing sugarcane even if it isn't much good for corn and grains.
That said, I recently read something that said for every FIVE QUARTS of ethanol it takes FOUR QUARTS of petroleum to produce it, including all the fuel used to plant, grow, harvest, dry, and transport the crop, heat to distill the alcohol, oil used by petrochemical plants to produce the pesticides necessary to grow the crop, and the natural gas used to make the ammonia fertilizer. That means that to replace our entire current gasoline supply with ethanol would require us to use four times the amount of oil we use currently just to produce and transport it. Clearly that isn't even possible. Ethanol isn't the magic bullet to solve all the energy problems, but I think it can be an important part of it. A sensible ethanol program would help farmers transition to more sustainable farm economy and probably help get the WTO off our backs at the same time, and probably help save a lot of farmland that would sprout subdivisions otherwise by making it profitable to farm. More emphasis on soybeans in the South to make biodiesel would help too. Switchgrass or other such crops for biomass power plants could be a good addition if they're economically viable. Increased fuel economy standards should be a no brainer but seems to be a four letter word to the powers that be.
It's got to be a combined effort on many broad fronts if it is to make even a good dent in the energy needs of this country. OL JR
I live near Sugarland, TX. Know why it is called that? Before WW 2 the main things grown within 30 miles of the place was rice and sugarcane. Hasn't been any sugarcane grown around here in probably 60 years. Rice is getting thin too. The sugar that Imperial Sugar produces comes in by rail for refining from Louisiana and Florida now. Simple fact is that sugarcane could be grown on a vast area across the Deep South and SE TX and could be used as a direct feedstock for ethanol production. The cotton industry is dying a slow painful death and sugarcane should be seriously looked at as an alternative and studies done by extension/universities and such. Every year farmers go under and more and more land is turning into subdivisions, and a lot of that land would be suitable for growing sugarcane even if it isn't much good for corn and grains.
That said, I recently read something that said for every FIVE QUARTS of ethanol it takes FOUR QUARTS of petroleum to produce it, including all the fuel used to plant, grow, harvest, dry, and transport the crop, heat to distill the alcohol, oil used by petrochemical plants to produce the pesticides necessary to grow the crop, and the natural gas used to make the ammonia fertilizer. That means that to replace our entire current gasoline supply with ethanol would require us to use four times the amount of oil we use currently just to produce and transport it. Clearly that isn't even possible. Ethanol isn't the magic bullet to solve all the energy problems, but I think it can be an important part of it. A sensible ethanol program would help farmers transition to more sustainable farm economy and probably help get the WTO off our backs at the same time, and probably help save a lot of farmland that would sprout subdivisions otherwise by making it profitable to farm. More emphasis on soybeans in the South to make biodiesel would help too. Switchgrass or other such crops for biomass power plants could be a good addition if they're economically viable. Increased fuel economy standards should be a no brainer but seems to be a four letter word to the powers that be.
It's got to be a combined effort on many broad fronts if it is to make even a good dent in the energy needs of this country. OL JR
If all the equipment your using to produce the ethanol are running on ethanol, or biodiesel, then your 4 quarts to 5 quarts argument is no longer an issue.
Corn ethanol is by no means the answer to all of our problems, but by continuing research in those areas we are laying the foundation to wean off oil more and more.
Corn ethanol is by no means the answer to all of our problems, but by continuing research in those areas we are laying the foundation to wean off oil more and more.
andybob
Well-known member
When economic sanctions were imposed on Rhodesia in 1965, we turned the sugar we could not export into fuel we could not import, all of the petrol (gasoline) at the pumps was a 50% ethanol mix, when sanctions were dropped in 1980, the mix proved to be viable enough financially to continue using it.
SPRINGER FARMS MURRAY GRE
Well-known member
Ancient Israel was required to let the land lay fallow every 7th year(Shabbat). :cboy:
MikeCWrote:
I have to agree with you to a point. I have travelled this beauitiful country and fly fished alot of it.In my travels, I KNOW that they're is a lot of open country that we can utilize. We just have to keep the big corporations away from it. IMPOSSIBLE TASK? I don't know. I know that Corn is not the end all of the way we want to use our our furture. Let me have another beer. Corn is not the answer to our energy problems but our Congress has apparently said this is the path that we are taking. WRONG. Let's see what the so called Legislatores can come up with the Farm Bill It WILL PROBABLY SUCK CANAL WATER.
Dick
I have to agree with you to a point. I have travelled this beauitiful country and fly fished alot of it.In my travels, I KNOW that they're is a lot of open country that we can utilize. We just have to keep the big corporations away from it. IMPOSSIBLE TASK? I don't know. I know that Corn is not the end all of the way we want to use our our furture. Let me have another beer.
Corn is not the answer to our energy problems but our Congress has apparently said this is the path that we are taking. WRONG. Let's see what the so called Legislatores can come up with the Farm Bill It WILL PROBABLY SUCK CANAL WATER.Dick
cowtrek
Well-known member
smuff76":2axj0wax said:
Sorry not possible... Yes you can run the a lot of the internal combustion engine equipment to say, plant, combine, haul, and heat/distill ethanol on ethanol, but not without HUGE infrastructure changes. When was the last time you saw a NEW gasoline powered farm tractor on the dealer lot? Try never. How about a gasoline powered 18 wheeler?? Nope. Ethanol is a good additive or alternative fuel in spark ignited engines (gasoline fueled) but will NOT work in compression ignited engines (diesel fueled). That's what biodiesel is for. Vegetable oils burn well in diesels. Virtually ALL farm and heavy equipment manufactured in the last 40 years has been diesel powered hence ethanol will not be a viable alternative for them. Biodiesel can be but that's a seperate issue.
Nevertheless, the fuel to plow, plant, spray, harvest, haul, etc. isn't the only part of that equation. You have to have PETROLEUM feedstocks to make petrochemicals, which is what almost all modern farm chemicals are. They can't be made from ethanol by any standard processes. (They theoretically could be made from any hydrocarbon in the laboratory but that's a long way from a VIABLE economical alternative). Additionally, natural gas is used to make most of the nitrogen fertilizers in use today, and vastly increasing grain acreage to grow more ethanol is going to require vastly more nitrogen fertilizer than is currently produced and used today. That will increase prices a LOT for fertilizer and for it's feedstock, natural gas, and require a lot of natural gas currently being used in electrical generation to be retasked to making fertilizer, which will drive electricity prices up too. Ya think $400/ton fertilizer is bad try $800/ton!
So, using ethanol to grow ethanol is kinda like watching a dog chase it's tail. What's the purpose and what would the darn thing do with it if he caught it?? OL JR
