As noted in our earlier posting, cellulosic ethanol and conventional ethanol have some challenges in common: development and availability of fuel-efficient cars using ethanol and an efficient infrastructure of raw material collection, processing and delivery. But in the long term given adequate research into developing efficiency and infrastructure, cellulosic ethanol appears to have the better potential for economy, environment-friendliness and waste management.
As colleges, universities, government organizations and laboratories, and private industries' efforts continue to expand daily in their search for truly economical commercial levels of cellulosic ethanol production, our country's goal of reaching the 20% reduction in gasoline consumption in the U.S. in 10 years (the 20 in 10 plan introduced by President Bush as part of his 2007 State of the Union address to Congress) looks ever more possible due this broad base of research, scientific, technological, and financial commitment to cellulosic ethanol production.
Cellulosic ethanol will not be the only biofuel that aids the U.S. in reaching this 10 year goal, but it will be a key lynch-pin in hitting the gasoline reduction goal and the critically important goal of reducing our reliance on foreign oil.
Presently ethanol production revolves primarily around the processing of corn kernels into ethanol using what's known as a Dry Milling Process and the alternative Wet Milling Process. There are other feedstocks such as soybeans, grain sorghum, wheat, barley, potatoes, and sugarcane, each of which will continue to play a part in the expanding production of ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol production introduces new feedstock such as wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover, rice straw, bagasse (the fibrous biomass residue remaining after the extraction of the sugar laden juice of sugarcane), Miscanthus, and the fast-growing willow and poplar trees.
Considering the diverse and abundant supply of the feedstock needed for cellulosic ethanol production, along with the numerous process options to choose from, there is opportunity for cellulosic ethanol production throughout the U.S., not just limited to where the highest abundance of feedstock (i.e. corn) is located. Along with this broader scope of locations for ethanol production plants come the economic benefits realized by communities where jobs and business opportunities arise for farmers, construction companies, manufacturing facilities, product manufacturers and financial institutions.
The process steps of cellulosic ethanol production are pretreatment (where the feedstock is opened to provide access to the cellulase enzyme processes, hydrolysis (where the cellulase enzymes are combined with the feedstock substrate), and fermentation (where combined with the hydrolysis activity the feedstock is broken down into cellulose and ferments to alcohol). Once these steps are completed the resulting ethanol product and co-products move to the distillation and storage phase where there is the recovery of the alcohol and solid waste incineration and steam generation; and the valuable distillers dried grain (DDG), distillers dried solubles (DDS), and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) co-products become available for various feedstock options for cattle, poultry and swine industries.
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