Posted on 01/16/2008 12:35:46 AM PST by Brian S. Fitzgerald
Mustard seed can produce almost as much as twice the oil from each bushel as corn can produce in ethanol. With that, we’ve already exceeded the corn’s fuel yield and not yet distilled the first drop of ethanol from mustard hulk.
Mustard can also be “no-tilled” and straight combined so crop production and equipment requirements closely matches that of corn requiring little switchover for the producer.
Even better, abt 2/3 of the world’s mustard seed stock comes from our friends and neighbors from our north, Canada. We need to eliminate the Arab noose on America’s necks and our Canadian friends can help.
We need to quit trying to get those apples to produce orange juice.
I believe the mustard seed - just as Jesus said, “is less than all the seeds that be in the earth” - offers more promise than we’re crediting it.
Here is what I find, I don’t see you are providing an equal comparison yet.
Mustard Yields 61 gallons of oil per acre.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
Corn Yields 375 gallons of ethanol per acre.
http://factsaboutethanol.org/?p=76
I don’t see efficiencies overcoming production values. Do you have different information?
Corn takes about 1.5 bushels/acre to produce one season crop of 100-120 bushels/acre, or 250-300 gal/acre in ethanol at a F&D rate of 2.5-3 gal/bushel.
Mustard takes 1 bushel/acre to produce 500 bushels/acre with a 40% oil extraction. If my math is correct - and I don't mind anyone's correcting me, a bushel is about 8 gallons and a 40% extraction rate = 3.2 gallons/bushel or about 1600 gallons of expressed oil per acre. Blend the oil with the ethanol from the F&D of the hulk and average the same 2.5 gallons/bushel as with corn and you'd have about 2300 gallons of fuel blend per acre or almost ten times that of the corn.
Also, mustard can have two production seasons per year when grown on America's farms, thus the yield disparity with corn is even greater.
NVDave said:"There’s a whole family of mustards we’ve not completely explored as oilseed feedstock."
Quite right. Who, how, and where the R&D is done will determine whether crude dependency in America is truly combatted. The field is wide open.
Your corn yield is low. This past year it was 151 bushels per acre.
Your mustard yield is WAY high. This past year it was 10 bushels per acre.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProd/CropProd-01-11-2008.pdf
at a F&D rate of 2.5-3 gal/bushel
What is a F&D rate?
Do you really think we don’t get enough corn starch in our diets?
Were you this picky when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Selecting technology when off by a factor of 50 is not going to provide the anticipated results.
Oh crap, I just now got your point.
It is as sharp as the one on top my head.
Oh I agree 100%. I can’t wait for plug-in electric cars that can go 300 miles between charges. And I hope Tesla makes it too. Building a car is a lot harder than people realize tho’. Tesla started w/ too many Silicon Valley guys and not enough car guys.
Tesla isn’t the only little guy working on this also - there’s Phoenix Motorcars and a couple other startups banging away. Realistically we’re still 10 years away from having real availability of this type of vehicle.
For what it's worth, I think you will find that the average acre of corn in the US will now produce about 437 gallons of ethanol. The 138 bushel per acre yield and the 2.7 gallon per bushel distillation rate are based upon 1996 - 2005 averages. Both the yield and the efficiency of distillation are increasing at a pretty good clip.
Don't sell your oil stock just yet.
This past year seems to be at 151 bushels per acre and 2.8 gallons per bushel for a total of 423.
The corn yield is from the link above for US 2007 harvest and the 2.8 is in the most recent RFA’s Ethanol Industry Outlook 2007.
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/pdf/outlook/RFA_Outlook_2007.pdf
Sell it now. Oil is crashing. Sell your house, too. Live in a tent on the beach now and beat the rush.
“Peak Oil” supposes a fixed amount of oil, which negates your statement.
However there are plenty of studies that disprove “peak oil supply” and highlight that oil is most likely a regenerative resource and not a finite source from dinosaur carcasses.
Then “Peak Oil” is, as you suggest, based on a false premise.
Still, even if the amount was fixed, some extraction is more difficult (expensive) than others, and will not be extracted until the price is high enough. This is the economics analysis of the situation.
So, Peak Oil is a doublefold myth.
The National Corn Growers Association reports that plants now ocming on line squeeze out 2.9 gallons per bushel. The contracting of high starch corn will shortly push that figure to 3.0 gallons, which will make the arithmetic a lot easier for me.
Unfortunately, the next year’s new plants will push the average to pi gallons/bushel. Then you’re toast.
Then we’ve come full circle in the process.
The actual theory is better called Peak Cheap Oil. As many point out on every Peak Oil thread, we will never run out of oil. But production of cheap oil can certainly peak, and apparently already has.
And then there is the 200 years of coal we have right here in the good old US of A.
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