Ethanol Potential in Giant Sweet Potatoes (1500-1800 gallons per acre)

http://domesticfuel.com/category/ethanol-news/

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“We are looking at feedstocks for ethanol and other fuels for the southeastern states because corn is not a crop that does well in the southeast. So, what we want is a very efficient crop for water, nitrogen, very high yielding,” she said, and the eTuber meets those qualifications. “These are very dry sweet potatoes, these are not in the food market, it would be a dedicated energy crop,” she explained.

“We would like to build or takeover a corn ethanol plant to show that these feedstocks work, in combination with sweet sorghum, which does very well in the southeast. We want to get in the ethanol game and create clean, green jobs in one of the poorest areas of the United States.”

Ryan-Bohac says the tubers can grow to be over 20 pounds, which would translate into enough starch to produce 1500-1800 gallons of ethanol per acre. “The longer you grow them, the bigger they get. This crop never dies until the crop kills it.”
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Didn't we already learn from the corn fantasy?

too dry.

production then there is less food. beck is an asshole.

" Between 1- and 1.2-billion acres of abandoned agricultural land is lying fallow, according to the researchers.

"Just to put that in context, global cropland is around 3.8 billion acres"

.. so that's almost one third of the amount of actively farmed cropland ... that is now being unused. This amount of land, the researchers estimate, could produce biomass energy equal to about 8% of the world's energy needs. Keep in mind transportation takes about 25% of the total energy consumption (this includes trains and planes and ships at sea -- personal transportation is a part of that 25%. But, that means this unused land could produce about 33% of the World's energy needs for all transportation.

The idea that someobody is going to plant energy crops instead of eating is nonsense ... the kindof thing Beck would say.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/july9/biofuel-070908.html


report in Journal of Environmental Science & Technology:

https://snri.ucmerced.edu/files/public/elliott_campbell/Campbell-etal-Biofuels-EST-2008.pdf

The World Bank, one of the voices that added to the hysteria in 2008 which singled out biofuels as the cause of world food shortages and price spikes made a correction of about 180 degrees (July 2010) and mentioned a number of factors which were the primary causes of the food commodity price spikes and shortages and admitted that biofuels production was a small part of the demand picture.

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2010/07/21/000158349_20100721110120/Rendered/PDF/WPS5371.pdf#page=14

"worldwide, biofuels account for only about 1.5 percent of the area under grains/oilseeds (Table 3). This raises serious doubts about claims that biofuels account for a big shift in global demand. Even though widespread perceptions about such a shift played a big role during the recent commodity price boom, it is striking that maize prices hardly moved during the first period of increase in US ethanol production, and oilseed prices dropped when the EU increased impressively its use of biodiesel. On the other hand, prices spiked while ethanol use was slowing down in the US and biodiesel use was stabilizing in the EU.
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One thing that the World Bank did not mention, is how big a part of the cost of food imported from Europe and the U.S. is the cost of shipping it to overseas ports. The trasportation costs for food exported from the U.S. to Japan adds about 50% of the cost of the farm commodity being shipped. Since ethanol is reducing the cost of petroleum not insignificantly(at least 15%), it also is reducing that cost of food imported from the U.S. Actually, the reduction to the cost of diesel to ship the food is greater than the increase to the Gate Price of corn caused by extra demand for corn to make ethanol.

.. I realize of course, this will do absolutely nothing to change your mind. But I didn't post this for you. I only posted this for those who have an open mind on this issue.;)

a food crop I am in favor of it. This particular crop is mainly grown in hot climates so it would also help the economies in these areas. Interesting idea.

Money spent on ethanol funded by mandates for the personal transport sector is little more than a handout to corporate agribusiness.

I used to think ethanol was made by Archer Daniels Midland and hardly anyone else.

Imagine my surprise when I found out otherwise. From the current fed report on ethanol

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/current_state_of_the_us_ethanol_industry.pdf

Sorry for the formatting here, the document itself is cleaner.


The U.S. ethanol industry is relatively un-concentrated. Based on capacity data published by RFA, the largest 10 ethanol producers currently account for less than 50 percent of total industry output while the largest three firms account for about 32 percent of total production. This is illustrated in Table 2.
Table 2 Ethanol Industry Concentration: September 2010 Production of the Ten Largest Ethanol Firms
Operating Production Capacity Aggregate (MGY) Share Share
POET
1,537.0
11.9%
11.9%
Archer Daniels Midland
1,450.0
11.2%
23.1%
Valero Renewable Fuels
1,130.0
8.7%
31.8%
Green Plains Renewable Energy
500.0
3.9%
35.7%
Big River Resources, LLC
310.0
2.4%
38.1%
The Andersons
275.0
2.1%
40.2%
White Energy
258.0
2.0%
42.2%
Aventine Renewable Energy, LLC
244.0
1.9%
44.1%
BioFuel Energy
230.0
1.8%
45.9%
Flint Hills Resources LP
220.0
1.7%
47.6%
Source: RFA


Now, if we want to talk about the blender's credit as a handout to oil companies, then that's something different.
Also, you might want to check out how farmer's subsidies have dropped since ethanol. They no longer have to be paid to grow nothing. So the levels of those subsidies dropped when ethanol subsidies went up. Take ethanol away, you would still have subsidies OR fewer farmers.

And from a cost/benefit perspective of energy security and AGW, it shouldn't exist.

cellulosic or algal processes the sweet potato or sweet sorghum approach is commercially viable (it's reasonable to expect profitability) right now. There are no technical hurdles that need to be cleared before one can start thinking about producing ethanol from this feedstock efficiently. Cellulosic and algae based approaches are still being worked on to achieve commercial viability.

I said ethanol lowers gas price at least 15%. That means the current price we pay for gas would be 17.6% higher without ethanol present. At say, $3.00 (as an average over the last 12 months) 17.6% of that times about 138 Billion gallons comes to: $73,000,000,000. That's about 12 times the cost of the Blenders Credit....

we give up $6 Billion in tax revenues and save $73 Billion due to lower gasoline costs, Hey, I think I'll take it!