BY JESSE THOMAS, Medill News Service
Times of Northwest Indiana
CHICAGO | An Illinois ethanol scientist said Monday that the Midwest can't produce enough corn with current acreage to meet the nation's likely long-term demand for ethanol so other sources like wood chips, municipal waste and corn stalks must be developed.
Speaking to the Chicago Farmers organization, Dr. Rodney Bothast, research director of the newly formed National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, said nearly 95 percent of the ethanol produced in the United States is made from corn, consuming roughly 12 percent of the harvest in 2005.
By 2012, Bothast predicted, ethanol could take 20 percent of the corn harvest, meaning further research is necessary to create ethanol from biomass materials such as corn stover, which is the stalk and leaves of the corn plant, and switch grass, now used for hay. President Bush noted such a development need in his State of the Union message last month.
"In the research arena, there's a clear understanding that there are constraints in allowing biomass to be converted to ethanol in a robust way," Bothast said.
The federal energy law passed in 2004 calls for 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced in the United States by 2012. Bothast said "that's very much attainable" with corn production alone. Roughly 4 billion gallons of ethanol were produced in 2005.
"It appears right now with the technology that we have that ethanol can be profitable," said Denny Hackett, who owns a 300-acre farm in Tuscola, Ill., after hearing Dr. Bothast's talk. "In the long run, corn may not be the fuel. It may be the biomass, but right now it's just not efficient."
Although the anticipated need for ethanol is cheering farmers and stimulating construction of ethanol-producing plants, there isn't current production capacity to meet future demand.
In Indiana, six to10 plants are expected to be built in coming years, but only one is operational now, in South Bend. The Iroquois Bio-Energy plant east of Rensselaer is one of four currently under construction, and it's scheduled to begin production later this year of a planned 40 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol annually.
Other ethanol plants in the planning stage are in Marion, Hartford City, Bluffton and Winchester.
The U.S. Department of Energy has stated that, by 2032, biomass materials must be a ready source of ethanol. Bothast said that right now it can be done in a test tube, but not for large-scale production.
Currently, one bushel of corn can produce approximately 2.5 gallons of ethanol. Rob Elliott, a farm owner in Warren County in West Central Illinois, said after Bothast's talk that biotech opportunities could make it possible in the future for five gallons to be produced from one bushel.
"We're underestimating corn's capability in this whole thing," Elliott said. "Corn has so much ability to create more efficiences. With the biotech opportunities today, we (can) make corn even more efficient."
The economic outlook for ethanol will be partially dependent on the price of oil, one audience member pointed out.
"It's very dependent on the oil price as fixed by somebody else," said Bill Whiteside, a retired consultant for a firm called Food Crop Horticulture, on whether ethanol can be profitable. "And it's also dependent on the price of corn. It's a balance."