# Corn Growers Assn. Statement



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

From Growing TN...

Regards, Mike

http://growingtennessee.com/news/2015/12/natl-corn-growers-assn-epas-final-rule-a-step-forward-for-ethanol-2015-12-08/?utm_source=Growing+Tennessee&utm_campaign=213c02efbb-growingtennessee-daily_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d75710df8e-213c02efbb-296641129


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

"America's corn farmers are proud to grow a cleaner burning, renewable fuel source for America and the world."

Uhhhhh.....? I am?

"In July, we asked the Environmental Protection Agency to restore the 2014-16 corn ethanol renewable volume obligation to comply with the Renewable Fuel Standard as passed by Congress and signed into law.

"Ohh-Oh!"

"While we are pleased to see the EPA take a step forward and revise its original proposal, the fact remains that any reduction in the statutory amount will have a negative impact on our economy, our energy security, and the environment."

It will?

"It is unfortunate that Big Oil's campaign of misinformation continues to carry weight in the court of public opinion, and in this decision.

And what "misinformation" is that?

"The Renewable Fuel Standard has been one of America's most successful energy policies ever."

For who? Or should I say "For whom?"

"Because of it, our economy is stronger, we are more energy independent, and our air is cleaner. We should be strengthening our commitment to renewable fuels, not backing down."

How is it working out in Brazil? And I guess shale oil, etc., had nothing to do with energy independence?

1984 "truth-speak" at its best.

Ralph


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

If they were truly committed to renewables, they would be encouraging farmers to plant sugar cane. The efficiency of ethanol production from cane is a LOT better than corn.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

I will say no doubt about if we don't have the ethonal mandate it would be a very bad thing for all farmers. Whether you live in the corn belt or not corn is king. All commodities follow it. Look how everyone preaches how the world doesn't need more wheat. Yet it was marketed for 8-9 dollars for 12 and 13 harvest as corn was making a historical climb. And for us that raise hay and forage it means less competition for feed and acres meaning a lower price.

I guess im confused why people don't think renewable fuel is a good thing. The first 5 billon bushels go to ethonal and we still grow enough to feed the world contrary what big oil ads might lead people to believe.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

It's not the idea of ethanol in gas that I question (and it is a separate question); it's the mandate that the oil companies had to buy 15 billion barrels, regardless of the need.

Rather than letting the market dictate the price of gas, ethanol and corn, the EPA's mandate forced the companies to buy a fixed quantity of ethanol at a time when fuel usage was dropping as well as fuel economy was increasing.

The smart thing, IMHO, would have been to say what the percentage should have been.

But, then again, what do I know?

Ralph


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

[quote name="rjmoses" post="253465" timestamp="1449593255

Rather than letting the market dictate the price of gas, ethanol and corn, the EPA's mandate forced the companies to buy a fixed quantity of ethanol at a time when fuel usage was dropping as well as fuel economy was increasing.

The smart thing, IMHO, would have been to say what the percentage should have been.

But, then again, what do I know?

Ralph[/quote]

I would like to see that as well.. From the begginig. But I think the mandate needs to remain or ethonal will be no more


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

aawhite said:


> If they were truly committed to renewables, they would be encouraging farmers to plant sugar cane. The efficiency of ethanol production from cane is a LOT better than corn.


The pink elephant in the room is that ethanol can be made out of just about anything with minor tweaking of equipment. As aawhite said sugar cane is more efficient then corn. They chose corn because at the time it was fairly cheap. This was published in 2008 how come more hasn't been said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080728192938.htm In my humble opinion the corn grown assoc are in hand in hand with big oil, I guess they only want ethanol if its made from corn heaven forbid a cheaper source that might help the public and bring a chance for smaller farmers who chose to grow something other then corn....


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

I wish corn fodder would catch on more in this area, but there is just too much work load to make it real profitable. We had a larger operation on the verge of getting started in the area. I actually worked closely with them. These guys were very smart and looked at every angle but just couldn't get it go in. just not enough money there for the added work load. I think corn is just more pratical then anything else. wheater it be fodder, wood pulp, sugar cane. It needs to be something mass produced.

I don't disagree with any statements on here they make good sense. I'd just hate to see ethinol loose more support with things already getting squezed tight in ag.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

A free market is better for producers and consumers. It is only bad for those somehow on the government's payroll. One way or another.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I'm sick and tired of this gummint picking the winners and losers. The ethanol mandate is merely the government forcing someone to buy something that the do not want...same principal as muslimcare. The upside to the gummint is that they are the clearing house who gets to take their piece of the pie right out of the middle, gets votes from the winners and demonizes the losers to justify their actions.

It was a demand driven, I might be more open to it. It is just another of the gummint's ideas that "are so good they have to be mandatory". Of course the winners will defend the mandate while the losers don't like it. For this conversation, I don't give a hoot in hell about the science of ethanol, the fact that the gummint forces one entity buy anothers' product is morally objectionable.

If other than the gummint, I might be more open to it. In Kentucky, there is an industry-instituted mandate that requires a whopping 51% corn ethanol! No gummint mandates, customers are either happy or don't buy it, customers have other options as well.

Sugar is more efficient per pound and is easier to produce the ethanol. The corn needs to be heated to 162 degrees to release the starch (IIRC) then an Amylace (IIRC) enzyme needs to be added to turn the starch to sugar. Sugar is ALREADY sugar (I'm guessing because I know nothing of sugar cane processing)

Why did the gummint pick corn to be the winner? There are plenty of other starchy or sugary crops to be raised here. There must be more corn farmer whose votes they intend to gain by taking the money of others and giving it to them than there are orchard owners, vineyard owners, etc...

I'm all for finding new and alternative ways of making energy, but I believe that capitalism will drive inventions far faster, more purely, and more efficiently than a mandate.

My head hurts, think I'll get another glass of ethanol and some frozen water. Note: "bourbon" must contain at least 51% corn derived ethanol to be so named (among other self-imposed mandates).
73, Mark


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

I reached my positive quota already Mark.

Rye does a really nice job as well when aged to perfection.

Malted barley creates another great vegetarian product.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

glasswrongsize said:


> I'm sick and tired of this gummint picking the winners and losers. The ethanol mandate is merely the government forcing someone to buy something that the do not want...same principal as muslimcare. The upside to the gummint is that they are the clearing house who gets to take their piece of the pie right out of the middle, gets votes from the winners and demonizes the losers to justify their actions.
> It was a demand driven, I might be more open to it. It is just another of the gummint's ideas that "are so good they have to be mandatory". Of course the winners will defend the mandate while the losers don't like it. For this conversation, I don't give a hoot in hell about the science of ethanol, the fact that the gummint forces one entity buy anothers' product is morally objectionable.
> If other than the gummint, I might be more open to it. In Kentucky, there is an industry-instituted mandate that requires a whopping 51% corn ethanol! No gummint mandates, customers are either happy or don't buy it, customers have other options as well.
> Sugar is more efficient per pound and is easier to produce the ethanol. The corn needs to be heated to 162 degrees to release the starch (IIRC) then an Amylace (IIRC) enzyme needs to be added to turn the starch to sugar. Sugar is ALREADY sugar (I'm guessing because I know nothing of sugar cane processing)
> ...


Can't "Like" this enough! Spot on!!!

I'm sick and tired of all these "mandates". I'm with you... If it's SO [email protected] good, WHY can't it succeed in the realm of competition when other alternatives aren't eliminated via MANDATE *FORCING* the elimination of all competition??

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" was the saying this country was founded on... Now it's "do as we SAY, not as we DO" and "you're *too stupid* to be allowed to choose on your own, so the gubmint will choose for you."

I call BS.

I was reading some interesting stuff on the ethanol/renewable fuels thing a couple years or so ago... turns out that corn ethanol is about the WORST possible way to produce fuel alcohol... it takes 4 quarts of oil/oil derived products (fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, etc) to produce 5 quarts of ethanol... IOW, to produce 5 quarts of ethanol takes a gallon of oil equivalent energy/materials. This is a TERRIBLE conversion factor... Using sugar as a feedstock, one gallon of oil equivalent energy/material produces THREE gallons of ethanol... IOW, a 12X more efficient process for producing ethanol than corn/grain derived ethanol...

I saw a program where they were talking about Brazil... Brazil, of course, grows massive amounts of sugarcane. They converted their entire energy industry over to ethanol in the 70's when OPEC was busy trying to twist everybody's t!tties in a knot for more money... Sugarcane is pretty easy to grow-- doesn't have many pests, it's a grass, and basically most of the plant is harvested. It can be mechanically cultivated (for those not familiar with the process, it's on YouTube... basically it's grown on wide beds about 5 feet wide, which are pulled up with a special hipper, then pieces of stalk with joints on them are planted in the ground and covered with dirt... this of course requires a special planter, which are mass produced, but not in common use other than on sugarcane farms (sorta like a potato planter). The crop is sprayed and fertilized and when fully grown, harvested by a machine that trims all the leaves off, cuts the stalks off at the ground, and cuts them into roughly 6 inch to foot long pieces and throws them into a basket which is dumped into trucks. The trucks carry the stalks to the mill, where the sugar content is graded by Brix scale meters and other methods to determine the sugar content, weighed, and dumped into the processor. The stalks are cleaned and washed, separated, pressed to remove the sugar-containing sap, and dried and burned for fuel to heat the water and provide steam for the separation processes. The liquid removed from the stalks is filtered, boiled, and concentrated to grow sugar crystals, spun/separated from the molasses leftover, and then purified into white cane sugar.

The program I saw in Brazil, the sugar plant had a two-way valve in the line of the final purified liquid sugar coming out of the plant-- throw the valve one way, and it sent sugar liquid to the dryer/granulator machinery. Once they filled their "sugar quota" for table/export sugar, they threw the valve the other way, and sent the liquid sugar/water directly into huge stainless steel fermenting vats, added the yeast, dialed in the temperature, and let the little beasties do their thing... Once fermented, they then filtered and distilled the liquid into pure grain ethanol. Simple.

I also read that just a few years ago, the US had a big glut of sugar beets... bumper crop and tweaks to the international sugar compact and reallocation of sugar allotments meant a drastic cut in domestic sugar production, which ended up being coupled with a BIG sugar beet crop. SO, Uncle Sam, in its infinite wisdom, issued "sugar vouchers" to the farmers as the sugar beets came in from the field. The sugar beets are typically harvested by diggers and hauled off in trucks to plants, where they're weighed in and the amount of sugar in the beets is determined by the Brix and other things, which can then tell exactly how much sugar will be produced from a load of beets. Uncle Sam would then issue the grower a "sugar voucher" for that amount of finished sugar, rather than paying them outright, so that the leeches in the markets could continue to steal all they could from the farmers, who had to sell their "vouchers" on the market, in lieu of the crop. The sugar beets are then NORMALLY piled in large piles, hopefully with cool enough weather to prevent them from rotting, and the clock is running to get them processed before bacteria rot them and eat all the sugar. They're chipped and shredded up, washed, the liquid pressed out, and the dry remains burned or composted. The sugar liquid is then processed similar to cane sugar extract. Since there was a bumper crop, Uncle Sam let all those sugarbeets ROT in enormous piles and essentially "paid off" the farmers with vouchers for already-produced sugar that they then had to sell "in the markets". How stupid is that?? They should have been running those sugarbeets round the clock in plants and then fermenting the sugar into alcohol for fuel, instead of wasting it all... course that would undercut the corn guys, and GOD FORBID anybody do anything that actually makes sense, even if it hurts the corn guys...

Sugar beets do require some special machinery to grow (usually grown on 22 inch rows IIRC; planted with regular corn/soybean/cotton/grain sorghum style plate/disk planters, but require toppers (to mow/remove the leaves and green top of the sugarbeet prior to harvest) and diggers to pull them up and tumble the dirt off before moving them by conveyor to trucks...

Farming in our area is dying out, being replaced by McMansions and hobby farms and subdivisions... didn't always used to be this way-- 100 years ago this area was a hotbed of farm activity-- my daughter goes to school and my wife teaches in Sugarland... which got it's name because it used to have one of the largest sugar plants in the United States... and this USED to be a big sugarcane producing area, at least through the world wars... Sugarcane and rice were both BIG business in this area-- now it's all gone... after the war, the sugar price/demand collapsed and production improvements meant less acres were needed-- this area dried up as sugarcane production withdrew to Louisiana and Florida and a few pockets of the deep south. Rice followed a similar track, as production methods and yields improved faster than consumption/demand, production withered and died and withdrew to pockets of production in the "Rice Belt", a strip of land basically from the Gulf Coast up through El Campo north to Eagle Lake, and a few miles west in the flatlands... abandoned rice fields were fenced and turned into cow pastures-- pastures that were largely left vacant or near-vacant for 50 years, until the building boom around Katy/Sugarland started building massive amounts of suburban subdivisions on them in the 80's and 90's and on... I know I used to work for United Gas Pipeline, cutting pipeline rights-of-way that ran through these subdivisions built in the abandoned rice fields, and the rice levees were STILL THERE even after 50 years... the tractor would rare up and climb over them as we cut! The land was perfect for sugarcane and rice, both of which were irrigated and grew well on the sandy topsoil with the gummy clay below holding the water... soils that other crops burn up in with our hot June/July/August weather and spotty rains that time of year... (and which aren't well suited to flood irrigation methods). Land suitable to switching over to corn/sorghum/cotton production was switched-- sandy ground with hard clay underneath prone to burning up in drought and drowning out in wet years was simply abandoned for low-value pasture... and now it's all under homes and schools and businesses and city streets...

Heck most of the rice farming is slowly dying out here... can't compete with places like Arkansas and Louisiana on a cost/yield basis... I see a LOT of rice land simply going back to grass/weeds and guys running a few head of cows on it...

I'd be ALL FOR an ethanol/renewable fuels program that MADE SENSE... and this whole "corn ethanol" malarkey is just that-- malarkey... it doesn't make ANY sense when you really look at the fundamentals... it's great for the corn farmers, and by extension, GRAIN farmers, since ethanol can be made from ANY grain that can be fermented (heck, anyTHING that can be fermented can make alcohol-- that's why the Nazis were SO excited about the V-2 Rocket in WWII-- it didn't require scarce and extremely expensive synthetic gasoline, unlike German fighter planes that could only run on high octane aviation gasoline made from coal (which was their only source left after we bombed out the Romanian oilfields in WWII, and the Russians took them over on the ground late in the war). The V-2 ran on liquid oxygen and ethyl alcohol, ie ethanol, which the Germans made domestically from POTATOES... that's right, potatoes, chopped up and fermented to make alcohol, exactly the way the Russians make vodka... in fact, the Germans had to start mixing in a vomit-inducing "barf-agent" into the rocket fuel for the V-2's-- the SS crews were getting rip-roaring drunk dipping into the rocket fuel and drinking it while transporting and fueling the rockets, and Hitler and the SS command were VERY prudish about drunkenness, especially of military officers...

If we were making ethanol from sources that yielded the greatest amount and most efficient conversion of inputs into ethanol, it'd make sense. But that's not what we're doing... all the 'ethanol program' is is a huge taxpayer and fuel purchaser funded transfer of funds from one group to another with better lobbyists... that's it. The rest is a smokescreen and bunch of environmental crapola...

Thing is, an ethanol program that makes sense wouldn't put money in the pockets of ADM and Cargill and the big corn/grain based multinational agribiz's... (and by extension, the corn farmers, who make no mistake are NOT the primary beneficiaries or concern for the ethanol mandate pushers in gubmint). It would require a change in the industry from grain feedstocks to sugar feedstocks, and by extension sugar beet and sugar cane growers, and those big sugar outfits are already owned and operated by companies OTHER than the Cargills/ADM's of the world... and they're not going to allow *someone else* to get THEIR piece of the pie...

In the end, it all comes down to what it ALWAYS comes down to-- MONEY... who's getting it, and who it's being taken from to give it to them... (you and me).

Heck, a few years ago, I attended a program where some researcher was discussing some experimental pilot production work they were doing for sweet sorghum based on-farm ethanol production... sweet sorghum, which is more like haygrazer (sorghum-sudangrass) than sugarcane, produces fairly high levels of plant sugar (more than sorghum/sudan but less than sugarcane) and is typically used to make black-strap sorghum molasses... Unlike sugarcane, which must be planted from stalks with joints in them being plowed under the row by special planters, sweet sorghum can be planted by ANY corn/soybean/cotton type planter using GRAIN SORGHUM plates, as the seed is identical in size/shape. The crop can be grown in standard row widths, flatland or on beds (depending on the area) and using farm equipment most all regular cotton/corn/soybean/grain sorghum farms ALREADY HAVE... The only difference was, in the harvest. Sweet sorghum is typically cut and hauled to presses that crush the stalks and squeeze out the juice/sap. This sap is then boiled down into sorghum molasses. Rather than haul huge amounts of wet stalks out of the field (harvested green of course), she was working on machinery that would operate something like a silage harvester... towed behind a tractor, it would cut off a row or two of sweet sorghum stalks just above the ground, strip the leaves off and expel them to the side or back of the machine, then feed the stalks, instead of into a chopper head like a silage cutter, into a roller mill press that would squeeze the stalks between them and extract the juice/sap, which would run down into a collection tray below. The crushed stalks would be expelled out the back on top of the leaves, where after drying it could be baled for valuable livestock feed. The extracted juice would then be pumped out of the collection tray into an on-board tank at the rear of the harvester. When the tank was full, it would be pumped into a large portable stainless steel "vat tanks" brought into the field and located for convenient access but still out of the way. Once the vats were filled, a special yeast (which they were also researching and trying to perfect) would be added-- normal yeasts require sterilization of the sugar feedstock to kill off naturally present "wild yeasts" almost always present in the air, as well as bacteria and microbes like molds... and "regular yeast" also requires special highly-controlled temperature environments to thrive and convert sugars into alcohol... something that requires very close monitoring in controlled environments, as anyone who's visited a brewery can attest to... they were researching "hardier yeasts" that could thrive and "outproduce" other "wild yeasts" and microbes present in the field-pressed juice without sterilization, that could be added directly to the vats on the turnrow, in a non-temperature controlled environment, and still thrive and ferment the sugar solution rapidly into alcohol before other microbes could "rot" it by breaking it down into waste products... Once they cracked that nut, it'd be a turn-key deal... pump the juice into the vat, climb the ladder and dump in the yeast, and walk away...

In a few weeks, the yeast would convert the sweet sorghum sap into raw alcohol/water/waste slurry, which can sit in the tanks until it's convenient to process... they were also working on a "field processor" that would essentially be a distillery on wheels... powered by a large engine, brought into the field by semi-truck, and parked next to the vats, hoses would be run to bring the ethanol/slurry into the machine, which would filter out the waste, distill the alcohol from the water, and pump the waste water overboard or store it in separate tanks, and pump the purified, concentrated alcohol into a tanker truck parked nearby, for hauling to the point of sale. The idea was to make the harvester and tanks cheap enough that a farmer could afford to buy/own the equipment, but the processor/distiller machine would doubtlessly be expensive enough that a group of farmers, co-op, or company would probably have to buy/maintain it and process the farmer's crop on-site into the final product, on some sort of share or price-per-gallon basis... I haven't heard anything more about it in the years since, so I assume that the whole project was probably shot down, since it obviously wasn't going to benefit the big existing ethanol producers... and they CERTAINLY don't want ethanol coming in FROM THE FIELD in tanker trucks, bypassing their huge grain ethanol plants!!! We can't have that, now can we??

Anyway, like virtually everything-- you want to know the REAL STORY?? FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!

Later! OL JR


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## Growing pains (Nov 7, 2015)

I'd get behind that system. Sounds like it had some thought and common sense put into it


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

Luke I think there are a lot of reasons corn is made for ethanol over other crops. First is byproducts. Ethanol byproducts great feed for cattle and can be had for very very cheap or sometimes free. Sugar cane creates a waste product that can't be used and cane is typically grown in southern climates. I think sugar beets is a great idea as well that should be considered. But they can't be handled and stored,for long periods of time in order to refined year around like u can with corn

But really none of this is worth even discussing if you don't have these mandates. Big oil would love to take this Ethanol blend out all together and sell us all 100% of there crude oil. So for me I guess I'd like options. Options I grow here on my farm. You said yourself why does it need to be mandated if it's so good. Well I think it's obvious big oil wouldn't use it If they didn't have too. Heaven forbid corn growers get 10% of the blend which oil companies use to up there octane while big oil takes the rest.

Really the law is called the renewable fuel standard. so its not just corn ethanol they are looking at. Its any renwable fuel.

Imo I think this affects all ag which is where I make my living so I guess I have my own motives as to why I think it's important I guess.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

bbos2 said:


> Luke I think there are a lot of reasons corn is made for ethanol over other crops. First is byproducts. Ethanol byproducts great feed for cattle and can be had for very very cheap or sometimes free. Sugar cane creates a waste product that can't be used and cane is typically grown in southern climates. I think sugar beets is a great idea as well that should be considered. But they can't be handled and stored,for long periods of time in order to refined year around like u can with corn
> 
> But really none of this is worth even discussing if you don't have these mandates. Big oil would love to take this Ethanol blend out all together and sell us all 100% of there crude oil. So for me I guess I'd like options. Options I grow here on my farm. You said yourself why does it need to be mandated if it's so good. Well I think it's obvious big oil wouldn't use it If they didn't have too. Heaven forbid corn growers get 10% of the blend which oil companies use to up there octane while big oil takes the rest.
> 
> ...


Well, this is true... better that farmers get SOME money out of it than nothing... and you're right-- big oil wouldn't use ANY of it if they didn't have to. I remember the squealing they did when the thing was first passed...

You make some good points on the storability of corn/grain for "year round" ethanol production versus sugarcane or sugar beets, which MUST be processed before bacteria and mold "rot" them down into complete waste... Once fermented, the alcohol acts as a preservative, and eventually reaches concentrations where it kills off bacteria and mold and even the yeasts themselves when the concentration gets high enough... at that point it's "preserved"... So basically you have to have the processing volume capability to extract the sugar liquid from the sugarcane or sugar beets within a given amount of time from harvest, before it rots. As you said, sugarcane is adapted to the warm climate of the south, particularly the deep south, and of course it must be processed within a matter of hours after harvest before it starts to rot (due to the heat). Sugarbeets, being a northern crop, are harvested in the fall when cool/cold weather helps preserve them. I saw a program on the sugar beet harvest up in Minnesota (IIRC) and was fascinated by it... they talked about all the retirees and seasonal help they have to hire to drive trucks from the field hauling beets, because they must harvest basically "around the clock" as the beets reach the proper stage and maximum sugar content... they showed the receiving side of the operations as well, with conveyors building specially-shaped "mountains" of sugar beets using moving conveyors... and their concern if the weather is "too warm" (which allows bacteria and mold to grow and start "rotting" the beets.) It was very interesting. Basically, once they're in the plant, the process is the same-- wash off remaining dirt, chop it (cane or beets) into pulp, extract the juice, and cook the juice down and concentrate it the the point sugar "seed crystals" are added and start growing crystals of sugar in the solution... then remove the fluid, spin them dry, and purify them into white granular sugar. Both the beets and cane have the moisture extracted, and IIRC, are burned to create part of the heat necessary to boil/reduce the sugary juice into liquid concentrated enough to start growing crystals... so there's not as much "waste" as you might think. Whatever IS left over is usually sold for processing into livestock feed as additives, anyway... like cattle molasses or beet pulp or cane pulp added to cubes or dry feed... So very little/nothing "goes to waste".

You're also correct that WDG (wet distiller's grains) and DDG (dry distiller's grains) are actually BETTER cattle feed than raw corn. I read somewhere that production of ethanol takes a 56 lb bushel of corn and turns it into about 2-3 gallons of ethanol and 44 pounds of DDG, with a crude protein about equivalent to soybean meal... (the starch is turned into alcohol-- the oils and protein in the corn "goes straight through" the process and comes out the other end intact, in fact, CONCENTRATED, due to the removal of a large portion of the starch as alcohol...

I still just dislike the very idea of being *forced* to buy a given product, whether I want it or not... and because *I* find it morally objectionable, I cannot in good conscience say that *others* (even big oil companies) should be FORCED to buy a product THEY don't want, either... anything else is "do as I SAY, not as I DO" and we have FAR, FAR too much of that in this country as it is... plus, I believe in the Golden Rule... "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you"... I don't want stuff I don't want rammed down my throat and forced on me, so I cannot support that being forced on others without being a hypocrite...

I just wish I could get ALCOHOL FREE gasoline for my small engines-- they're PARTICULARLY susceptible to damage from alcohol-laced gasoline... In other stuff, I don't mind so much...

It's a complex issue, but I just hate the idea of the gubmint deciding the winners and the losers and who's FORCED to buy what... that's un-American IMHO...

Later! OL JR


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I pondered it into simplicity... 

If it is so good, why don't the corn ethanol folks buy the oil (gas) and then add their secret super-ingredient (ethanol) and sell it for more than straight gas? ... because it's better, right?

73, Mark


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