Buffalo ethanol plant put on hold

[4dsc]

http://siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/07/07/news_business/local/4d9a5960bd917e1e862573110012b23a.txt

Interesting... This company didn't want to take the $100,000,000 risk??

Plans for an ethanol plant in this eastern Iowa town are on hold until developers can look at other ways to produce biofuel and look for financial partners.

Larry Daily said he and his partners at River/Gulf Energy decided the project was too risky when corn prices climbed to $4.50 a bushel and ethanol dropped to less than $2 a gallon during the winter months.

"It made the company realize we didn't want to be the sole owner and operator of this," Daily said.

[glowing]

1. We really shouldn't be using a food crop as a bio-fuel... Use

algae... it would create the most efficient biofuel.

[frogcycle]

3. algae, switchgrass, sugarcane, sugarbeets

depending on the location/climate

NOT corn!

[rodeodance]

4. actually, it is nonediables and parts of corn such as stalks and husks that is

the object of reseach right now---basic research on how to get the 'sugars' from these plants. very little is know actually-----UW-madison just got a 125 M. grant---to work with forestry depts-----wood chips etc to get the energy from from sources.

currently we use the corn kernal for the energy---(taking away from food supply)--to make ethanal--same process as brewing beer basically.

switch grass yes (but sugar beets and cane are used for food products so not good sources of biofuels)

[frogcycle]

5. sugarcane is the highest yield of any plant

and vast amounts of cane fields have been converted over the past couple of decades top stuff like macadamia nuts and palm oil plantations - outrageously low food yield per acre - as sugar demand has dropped - so it is viable to increase acreage for fuel without impacting food supply. Also, the sugar captured from cane is a small portion of the biomass. The practice of burning cane fields prior to harvest to get rid of the leaves and make it easy to get at the sugar is counterproductive. We'd be better off converting all the sugarcane to biofuel and using more beetsugar and corn syrup!

a comprehensive and balanced approach would include capturing the cellulosic energy from switchgrass - to be grown largely in the great plains where it is native, utilizing acreage now fallow or in rangeland as well, algae where bodies of water are available, and the sugars where land is available for incremental planting

Once the plants to preprocess cellulose and get it to ferment are prevalent, lots of additional sources can be tapped without disrupting food supplies

[4dsc]

6. Where do you get your information??

Cellulose ethanol reserach has been ongoing for the past 30 years and just how you get the sugars out of plants is the emphasis of that research!!

And switchgrass is not the asnwer to cellulose ethanol either!!

[frogcycle]

2. arent those buffalo going to get bloated?