Alternative Fuel Sources - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 90

peanuts. Traditional peanuts can produce 120 to 130 gallons of biodiesel per
acre, compared with about 50 gallons of biofuel per acre from soybeans.
A cost efficient way to utilize wheat in ethanol production has been
developed by researchers from Greece and the U.K. This process splits the
grain into separate components, separating out the nonfermentable solids,
and then uses a group of enzymes to ferment the proteins and starches us-
ing a single liquefaction and saccharification step.
The University of Nebraska has developed the Biofuel Energy
Systems Simulator (BESS) software program to analyze energy yield, effi-
ciency, greenhouse gas emissions and resource requirements for corn eth-
anol plants. It quantifies the environmental impact of ethanol production
from seed to fuel, including energy and greenhouse gas use from crop pro-
duction, byproduct use, waste disposal and transportation. The program
will be expanded to assess bioethanol production from other sources as
well as biodiesel production.
In 2007 a bumper crop in corn took the edge off problems with sup-
plies. The USDA confirmed that corn acreage was up almost 20% from
2006, with farmers planting almost 2.5 million more acres than they had
planned. The crop was estimated at 13 billion bushels, up 23% from 2006.
This caused corn prices to drop 40 cents to 50 cents a bushel, but increas-
ing demand for corn to produce ethanol and to feed livestock in Asia,
Latin American and elsewhere kept world stocks low.
China's rapid growth in ethanol output has dropped off due to a
government rule in 2007 that restricts production to nonfood feedstocks.
The country has four state-licensed and subsidized fuel-grade ethanol
plants which will continue to operate. Another 6 to 10 new plants are due
to open, but they will need to use cassava and sorghum, instead of corn.
The Chinese government does not consider cassava and sorghum as food
grains, but they are staples in some countries. China may have trouble
finding adequate nonfood feedstocks since little additional arable land is
available. Only a few acres are planted in sorghum and none to cassava.
The government will divert some corn acreage to these crops, but China's
need for food and livestock feed does not leave that much acreage for non-
food production. China is already a large importer of starch crops and in-
creased demand for them will drive up world prices. To offset this, China
plans to lease several million acres in Laos and Indonesia for the produc-
tion of cassava and palm oil.
Demand has been heating up corn prices and they are likely to re-
main high for the next few years. But, the USDA maintains there is plen-