We’ve all heard the arguments against corn ethanol before, but this is the first study of its kind to look at economic and health costs of not only corn ethanol but also of gasoline and cellulosic ethanol, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and BusinessGreen.com.

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In the report, “Will the Plunge in Grain Prices Mean Lower Food Prices at the Supermarket?,” the RFA points out that, while prices for agricultural staple commodities such as corn, wheat, and soybeans have all plummeted by about 50% in the last half year, food prices at the grocery store have remained highly elevated. At the same time, ethanol production has dramatically increased.

When the above factors are taken together, the link between grocery store food prices and corn ethanol production becomes dubious. Not only that, and also somewhat unintuitively, it seems that the diversion of relatively large portions of the US corn crop to ethanol production has very little effect on even the market price of corn.

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The EPA, through its Renewable Fuel Standards program, has set a pretty idealistic goal for the introduction of cellulosic biofuels, and many are wondering if the goal will be able to be met.

In its mandate, the EPA has ordered that 36 billion gallons of biofuel be blended into the fuel supply by 2022. That doesn’t seem like such an unrealistic goal, until you consider that as of this writing, there are no commercial-scale refineries in existence in the United States and no distribution network to move the fuel once it has been developed. With these two roadblocks, 2022 doesn’t seem so far distant.

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Last week Coskata announced the location for their pilot demonstration plant, a facility that will begin producing 40,000 gallons of ethanol per year, starting in 2009. While that is only a tiny drop in the proverbial bucket, it’s another step along the path to having a full-scale plant in operation and producing 50 to 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.

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I won’t go into the details of the tour, the PowerPoint, the partnership, the process that Coskata uses, the partnership that Coskata announced on the 6th with one of the largest ethanol refinery builders, (under embargo–we can expect details of partnerships like this to literally leak out consistently over the next year, similar to the strategy that GM is using to re-release all of its SUV lines as hybrids) or anything else, because they’ve all been covered so well here:

GroovyGreen’s coverage of the tour and PowerPoint

GM Announces Biofuel Partnership: Cheap, Green Ethanol?

Economic Conditions Shifting in Favor of Ethanol

Coskata partnerhship with ICM Announcement

Update: EcoGeek has a post up too, but they don’t link to any of ours.

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Cow manure has been discovered as an energy source: it has power and it’s being used to make electricity and ethanol. Take for example the E3 BioFuels Genesis plant in Mead, Nebraska. The $80 million facility began operation this summer, turning out some 25 million gallons of ethanol a year (a rather small amount, compared to other ethanol plants around the country). What makes this facility unique is it’s patented closed-loop system, the first of its kind in America, and quite possibly in the world.

The plant is old news, really, but here’s how it works. A nearby beef cattle feedlot provides 150,000 pounds of manure every day, which is processed through an anaerobic digester, and that produces methane. The methane is used to fire the plant’s boilers, replacing expensive natural gas, resulting in a large reduction in operating expenses. Company officials say the Genesis plant produces 46 units of energy for every unit of fossil fuel energy required, a 46:1 efficiency ratio. Conventional ethanol plants are rated at a ratio of 3:1.

A byproduct of ethanol production, wet distiller’s grain, is fed to the cattle in the feedlot and the process begins all over again. Now this is a very brief explanation of what’s happening at the Genesis plant. Their website explains it very well..

So why am I writing about this? Well, there’s more to cow manure, as you probably know. Millions of tons are produced every day by the estimated 1.5 billion cattle populating our planet. Let’s put this into some sort of perspective. The University of Wisconsin at Green Bay estimates the average dairy cow drops 148 pounds of manure each day. Do the math: that’s a lot of BS! And you thought it was all in Washington!

Dairy Farms

Haubenschild FarmSeveral dairy farms in America use the output of their cattle in much the same way as the Nebraska plant, with one exception. The Haubenschild Dairy Farm in Princeton, Minnesota, is a shining example. Instead of using the methane to create heat for boilers, it’s used to run generators that provide electric power for the operation, and supply electricity to surrounding homes as well. Anaerobic digester systems are expensive though, ranging from $200,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the size of the herd, so farmers with smaller herds have been reluctant to make that kind of investment. The USDA has free software for download that will determine digester size and cost based on the size of a farm’s herd. I found it fun, and very informative.

Hopefully, as the science of digesters improves, the process will become less costly, and more farmers and commercial operations will be able to take advantage of poop power. I was surprised to learn from The AgSTAR Program website that several pig farms are using digesters, and there’s even a duck farm in Wisconsin using a digester.

Belching

Here’s the capper: while manure provides greenhouse gasses, a cow’s breath introduces far more methane and other gasses into the air. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the six million tons of methane burped by cattle in the US each year is equivalent to 36 million tons of carbon dioxide. If you add the output of sheep, goats and other ruminants, they all account for more than 18% of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, and that, according to the IPCC, is more than cars, planes and all other forms of transportation.

So, is the world’s cattle population contributing to global warming? It would seem so with all the belching and pooping, and the IPCC makes a strong case.

While we’re beginning to discover applications for animal manure, what about the burping? I doubt gas masks would work well on cows, and there’s no way we’ll be decreasing herd sizes anytime soon. Diet seems the best way to reduce production of greenhouse gasses produced by livestock, along with more efficient and productive methods of dealing with manure.

I’m so proud of myself; I didn’t once say “shit."