>You’re not subtracting the btu’s chargeable to the co-product.
So?
>If you’re going to charge all of the energy cost of the distillation to the ethanol, then the CO2, corn oil and distillers grains are all free.
I realize that; I am not analyzing the “bonuses” given from waste- or by-products, but only the cost of the production of ethanol.
>(What could be better than a process which produces edible oils and high protein feeds for free?)
But they truly aren’t free if the cost-of-production-and-transportation of the Ethanol consumes MORE BTUs than the Ethanol contains in-total.
If that is the case then what you are terming as free “edible oils and high protein feeds” is actually costing something: the loss in BTUs.
A 30,000 gallon railroad tank car should weigh something less than 268,000 lbs. fully loaded. An American railroad can haul an average gross ton 480 miles on a single gallon of diesel. A gallon of diesel contains 140,000 btu's and a gallon of ethanol obtained by the dry milling process contains a hair over 46,000 more btu's than were required to produce it (giving fair allocation to the oil and feed also produced).
So, what, the tank car could be moved one and a half times around the Earth before the net energy gained from the ethanol was burned up by transportation?