The Value of Corn Ethanol Co-Products
Posted: June 18, 2009
One of the frustrations for the corn ethanol industry in the whole indirect land use/lifecycle analysis debate is that the value of co-products such as distillers grains (DDGs) are often ignored.
Dave Vander Griend, president and CEO of ICM Inc, has just released a white paper on the subject, “Rethinking the Value of Corn Ethanol Co-Products in Lifecycle Assessments.” ICM is a Kansas-based company that has been building and designing ethanol plants since 1995, with a special emphasis on improved process design and energy efficiency. One of their most innovative facilities is LifeLine Foods, located in St. Joseph, Missouri, which produces both food and fuel and is serving as a model for the industry.
In his white paper, Dave points out that the value of ethanol co-products is highly underrated. “Recognition of the co-products that come from ethanol production is absolutely fundamental to understanding the true value of corn as a food and energy crop,” Dave says. Not only does ethanol production return about one third of the corn it utilizes in the form of DDGs for livestock feed – the nutritional value of that feed is actually 50% BETTER than raw corn. He points to research done by animal nutritionists at the University of Nebraska that found energy value of DDG when fed to cattle is as much as 145% of the original corn.
According to Dave, that means, “When we harvest an acre of corn for ethanol production, we’re actually only using half of the equivalent of that acre to make ethanol. The other half is returned in nutritional value to feed livestock for the human food supply.” This feed credit should be calculated when determining the overall demand for corn for ethanol production and the ultimate lifecycle analysis for ethanol.
During a panel discussion at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Denver this week, Dave compared the different categories of feedstocks for ethanol – sugar, cellulose and starch – using sugarcane, switchgrass and corn as examples. “All three of them will give you fuel, but when you look at which ones will give you food and fuel, you only have corn,” said Dave. He says if you count the food and feed value of corn utilized for ethanol, corn is actually the most efficient energy crop.
Listen to Dave’s comments at FEW here, it is good stuff.
There is much more in Dave’s well-researched paper and all corn ethanol advocates should familiarize themselves with it.