January 7, 2009
US still sees corn as key ethanol component
Despite the various negative press on ethanol, an industry expert said corn will remain as a crucial component of ethanol in time to come.
There is a perception that corn-based ethanol is just a stepping stone to cellulosic ethanol, said Mark Lambert, spokesman for the Illinois Corn Growers Association.
Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from a wide variety of biomass feedstocks including agricultural plant wastes, plant wastes such as sawdust or paper pulp and energy crops such as switchgrass.
Corn ethanol represents many stones and is a bridge to cellulosic ethanol, but corn ethanol should be around for a good time to come, said Lambert.
Rising corn prices hit the livestock and poultry industries hard last year. Several leading figures in the livestock and meat industries have hit out at the ethanol sector and the US' ethanol mandate, saying that the sector had caused price increases and partly caused great losses to the industries.
Cellulosic ethanol is too expensive to be viable, but more use could be made of Brazil's sugarcane-ethanol which is nearly twice as efficient as corn-based ethanol, said Tom Elam, president of FarmEcon LLC.
