Contents
How much corn does it take to make moonshine?
Base Moonshine Ingredients and Materials: –
- 5 Gallons of Water
- 8.5 Pounds of Flaked Corn Maize
- 1.5 Pounds of Crushed Malted Barley
- Yeast
- Mash Pot
- Fermentation Bucket
- Heat Source
- Thermometer
- Long Spoon
How much corn goes to ethanol?
The U.S. is the world leader in biofuel production—generating 47 percent of global output over the last decade. The ten-fold expansion in ethanol production in the U.S. from 2002 to 2019 has been driven by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal program that since 2005 has required transportation fuel to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels.
- So far, that has largely meant corn ethanol.
- Currently 98 percent of gasoline in the U.S.
- Contains some ethanol, most commonly 10 percent, or E10.
- For the last decade, ethanol has helped keep corn in high demand, and made it the most-planted U.S. crop.
- In fact, roughly 40 percent of all corn is now used to make ethanol.
Meanwhile, the number of corn farms over 500 acres in size has increased over time, while the number of small corn farms is dwindling. And all this growth has led to record profits for the companies that buy and sell the nation’s corn. For instance, last month, Archer-Daniels-Midland, the food processing and commodities trading giant, reported its highest-ever earnings, a net income of over $2.7 billion, due in large part to rising biofuel demand.
For the last decade, ethanol has helped keep corn in high demand, and made it the most-planted U.S. crop. In fact, roughly 40 percent of all corn is now used to make ethanol. Despite the promise that the RFS would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) today finds that expansion of U.S.
corn cultivation has come at eye-popping environmental costs. Corn production expanded by 8.7 percent, or 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), between 2008 and 2016. As a result, the researchers found that nationwide annual fertilizer use surged by 3 to 8 percent and water pollutants rose by 3 to 5 percent.
- The sheer extent of domestic land use change, however, generated greenhouse gas emissions that are, at best, equivalent to those caused by gasoline use—and likely at least 24 percent higher.
- That’s because the RFS caused corn prices to spike by 30 percent and soybean and other crops by 20 percent.
- As a result, farmers planted corn everywhere they could, replacing other crops and pastureland, and plowing up land that had previously been reserved for conservation purposes.
They also often skipped the soybeans in their rotations, despite the potential impacts on their soil. Tyler Lark, who studies land use change at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has been tracking cropland expansion for years, but the burning research question in his field has been: To what degree have biofuels driven that expansion? Lark teamed up with agricultural economists and water quality experts for five years to produce what is one of the most comprehensive studies to date.
- The bottom line is bluntly straightforward.
- If you crank up demand, you get land use change,” says Lark, who is also a co-author of the new study.
- Every major agency in the U.S.
- That puts out data, including the U.S.
- Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S.
- Geological Survey (USGS), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have all observed this rapid cropland expansion, adds Lark.
Previous studies, however, dramatically underestimated the impacts those land use changes had on carbon emissions; in fact, the models treated the land that was converted from conservation or pasture as if there was little change in the amount of carbon stored once it was planted with corn—which runs counter to existing empirical evidence,
How much methanol is in corn mash?
How to make Moonshine. 99% Traditional corn Moonshine
Typically, about 10% of the alcohol created can be methanol. If your fermentation creates 10% alcohol in total, you are looking at 1% of your total mash to be methanol. Fortunately, methanol can be removed from moonshine during the distillation process.
How much does it cost to produce 1 gallon of corn ethanol?
Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as ‘unsustainable subsidized food burning’ in analysis by Cornell scientist | Cornell Chronicle August 6, 2001 Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel takes a longer range view. “Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning,” says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published in September, 2001 in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology,
An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol. The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. o Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU. “Put another way,” Pimentel says, “about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTU.” Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. “That helps explain why fossil fuels – not ethanol – are used to produce ethanol,” Pimentel says. “The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol.U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it, either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price.” Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. “Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol.” The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: “In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace.”
Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:
The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans. If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
: Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as ‘unsustainable subsidized food burning’ in analysis by Cornell scientist | Cornell Chronicle
How much corn does it take to produce 1 gallon of ethanol?
1. Food used to make ethanol – How many people could be fed with the corn used for ethanol? In the US, the primary ethanol production input is field corn. While not typically eaten on the cob, field corn is used to make other food including breakfast cereal, corn flour or meal, corn sweetener, and corn oil.
- It serves both as food for people and feed for livestock-which subsequently becomes food for people in the form of poultry, pork, and beef.
- A bushel of field corn can be used to produce about 2.77 gallons of ethanol,
- A bushel of field corn weighs 56 pounds, each pound containing about 1,550 Calories,
Therefore, it takes about 31,300 Calories of field corn to produce one gallon of ethanol. Regular gasoline (E10) typically contains 10% ethanol by volume (averaging 9.6% nationally in 2011 ). Therefore, about 3,000 Calories of corn energy is used to produce each gallon of regular gas.
The suggested daily food energy intake is 2,100 Calories per person, A single gallon of regular gas contains more than enough food energy to feed a person for one day. More precisely, every gallon would feed 1.4 people for a day or one person for 1.4 days. It is often pointed out that a portion of the corn energy does not end up in the ethanol, but instead in by-products subsequently fed to animals, called distillers grains, which may account for up to 31% of the corn by weight,
The actual amount is often less than 31% and in 2011 was 23% overall, The by-products are not used for food, and their nutritional content limit their use for feed, Even after removing 23% or 31% of its food energy, a gallon of regular gas still contains more than enough to feed a person for a day.
What is the equivalent amount of sweet (“on the cob”) corn in regular gas? The energy in sweet corn is 485 Calories per pound, and there are about 0.2-0.25 edible pounds on each ear of corn, In a gallon of regular gas there is food energy equivalent to 28 ears of sweet corn, while just 19 ears of sweet corn would satisfy a person’s daily energy requirement.
An average 16 gallon tank of gas contains ethanol from enough corn to feed 22 people for a day, or one person for over three weeks. The total amount of ethanol produced in the US in 2011 was 13.95 billion gallons, enough to feed 570 million people that year.
How many acres of corn do I need for ethanol?
An acre of solar produces far more energy than corn – If you compare the energy utility of an acre of solar panels to an acre of corn, the acre of solar wins by a landslide. Each year, one acre of corn produces 551 gallons of ethanol, which is the equivalent of 386 gallons of gas. Using the average miles per gallon of a US automobile, this equates to 9,691 miles driven per acre of corn per year.
- In Iowa, an acre of solar panels produces 198,870 kilowatt hours each year.
- A typical EV drives approximately 3.6 miles per kilowatt hour.
- So, each year, an acre of solar panels produces enough energy for an EV to drive 710,250 miles,
- This is over 70 times the distance the same acre producing corn could provide.
Unlike ethanol, an acre of solar can power anything attached to the grid. The same Iowa acre, for instance, could also be used to provide 18 average US homes with electricity for the year. The financial utility of replacing corn with solar also promises huge gains for farmers.
How much corn does it take to make a bottle of whiskey?
FAQs – How much does it take to make a gallon of whiskey? It takes 8.5 pounds of crushed corn to make a gallon of whiskey. You also need 1.5 pounds of malted barley, crushed, and 5 gallons of water in this mash recipe. But how many gallons are in a barrel of whiskey ? Can you make whiskey from sweet corn? Yes, you can use sweet corn to make whiskey.