Ethanol’s byproduct could feed humans
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By Dick Wells | Tuesday, May 06, 2008 |
I have heard this from co-workers and friends. I have heard this in my barber shop. Ethanol is burning up our corn, driving up food prices and will ruin our economy.
Much of the conversation is spurred by the Annawan production facility due on line in August 2008.
The ethanol refining process takes the kernel of corn and extracts the starch. Adding heat and yeast changes the starch to sugar and then to 190 proof alcohol. It is then blended with gasoline at a 10 percent or 85 percent rate and the last stop is your gas tank.
What is left is called Dry Distiller Grain, or DDG. The present use of DDG is for livestock feed, but not only for local feedlots. Barges are being loaded for export to feedlots in France.
If we take a macro view of the global food chain, the shortage is not starch or sugar, but protein. Recent newscasts show Africa as an area with huge protein deficiencies. And they state that the Midwest farmer and ethanol plants are to blame. Why not be positive and report that DDG could be processed into a protein supplement or used as cornmeal for bread.
The idea of food grade DDG and clean fuel production at the same facility would be a huge win for our society. I predict the byproduct, DDG, will be more valuable than the ethanol they were originally designed to produce in three to five years.
Dick Wells
Annawan
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