Iowa cattle industry could boom thanks to ethanol
We mentioned a somewhat-cattle-related story last week and now here comes another one. Maybe it's the start of a trend.
Anyway, farmers in Iowa think that the ethanol industry could not only help, say, corn farmers, but also cattle farmers, since one of the byproducts of making ethanol (de-starched corn kernels) can be used as a high-protein livestock feed, according to an article in the Des Moines Register. Since ethanol is a growing industry and Iowa is the top ethanol-producing state, a lot of this byproduct will be created, which could prompt a boom in the cattle industry in the state. One cattle feeder has been feeding ethanol co-products to cattle since 1985. Back then he bought wet corn gluten feed from Cargill Inc.'s corn syrup plant in Cedar Rapids, the article says.
[Source: Des Moines Register]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Howard Lee Harkness 10:46AM (7/31/2006)
Corn and "wet corn gluten" are fantastic for making meat animals grow rapidly morbidly obese (cattle metabolize gluten protein mostly as a carbohydrate, so the "high-protein" nature of corn gluten is a red herring). Works on people, too, by the way.
Unfortunately, the health problems resulting from eating CLA-deficient corn-fed beef are never addressed. Another item that consistently doesn't get mentioned is the fact that more than half of the human population has some problems with gluten in general.
Corn is still a lousy source of ethanol (compared with sugar cane, for instance), and ethanol is a lousy fuel (compared to either biodiesel or SVO). Ethanol *is* somewhat better than hydrogen, which will require repeal of some laws of physics and chemistry before it will be anything more than a really dumb idea. I can imagine that someday, somebody might be able to overcome the metal embrittlement problem with some entirely new metallury technology, but I don't see any way to change the enormous range of explosive air mixture.
Ethanol *does* make the ideal fuel for my bow-rehairing alcohol lamp, though. The hydrophilic nature of alcohol doesn't matter much in that application, nor does the low energy content, or it's corrosive effect on rubber. What matters is the relatively cool, non-sooting flame. Just have to remember to use it in a well-ventilated are to avoid the toxicity problems.
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1985 Gripen 5:39PM (7/31/2006)
Mr. Harkness sure knows WAY more about this sort of thing than I do.
I just wanted to point out that the major new ethanol plant being built in Madera, California will sell the byproduct of its corn-based ethanol process ("high-protein wet distiller's grain) to feed the local cattle population (which is a huge industry in the area) as well. They're also selling another by-product of the process, carbon dioxide, to food and beverage manufacturers.
http://www.pacificethanol.net/_content/about_products.php?nav=main&a=About&b=Products+and+Services
The way Pacific Ethanol sees it is that they gain efficiencies by being centrally-located to take advantage of rail to bring in the California-produced corn, then send out the byproducts by train to the local cattle industry and food/beverage industry. They're not spending tons of money and pollution in diesel trucks transporting the materials.
Now how the ethanol gets from the plant to wherever they blend it with gasoline is another story...
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