John Biondi. “Anti-ethanol arguments are easily debunked”. Wisconsin Technology Network. August 1st, 2006 – “There is no question that the upper limit on plant-based fuels is land use, but we can increase even corn ethanol production into the future while other feedstocks come on line – and still have plenty of food and feed! One thing always missed in this argument is that ethanol production produces animal feed, which is where the bulk (55 percent last year) of the corn crop goes anyway.
The byproduct of ethanol production is a protein-rich animal food that is approximately one third the weight of the corn that comes into the ethanol plant. Although the production of ethanol reduces the corn weight by two thirds, it doesn’t change the protein content. Ethanol production reduces the feed bulk but not the feed value of corn. This byproduct is currently better fed to cows than to chickens or pigs (at least for now), but certainly isn’t taken out of the animal food supply.
In reality, the current concern in the industry is that the boom in ethanol demand will create a glut of this type of feed, not a shortage. The bulk of the corn going into the human food category goes into high fructose corn syrup, which currently sells for more than four times ethanol’s value, making it unlikely that its production will decrease in favor of ethanol.
Biofuels produced incidentally to food-crop agriculture are suboptimal in several dimensions, but their production and consumption in the medium term gives us the time and creates the infrastructure necessary to achieve more optimal production from engineered non-food crops and improved processes.”
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