Des Moines Register
06-04-06
Hunter: With focus, Iowa can keep edge in ethanol
CAROL HUNTER
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Tuesday was a heady day for pioneers of the state's ethanol industry.
Gov. Tom Vilsack signed into law a package of bills designed to expand
availability and use of renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, and boost
production of electricity from wind.
The legislation lays out a series of steps to use renewable fuels to replace 25
percent of all petroleum in Iowa's motor fuel by 2020.
Two decades ago, proselytizers in pickup trucks met plenty of skepticism among
fellow farmers and bankers when they spoke of building a gasohol industry to
transform their crops into motor fuel.
It's doubtful even the true believers envisioned a day so soon when Iowa would
ship rail cars of ethanol to the coasts, thirsty for a cleaner-burning fuel.
But in just the past year, the stars have aligned to make ethanol a cool fuel:
Sustained high oil and gasoline prices have made the economics of ethanol more
attractive; Congress in August adopted a new energy bill that calls for nearly
doubling renewable-fuels use by 2012; President Bush has stepped up advocacy
for ethanol production to lessen dependence on foreign oil; and the phase-out of
the oxygenate MBTE, which contaminated groundwater, has significantly
boosted ethanol use to meet Clean Air Act standards.
To be sure, ethanol still has critics, who question its energy balance (in essence,
does producing ethanol expend too much energy compared with the energy it
yields?), cite its lower mileage per gallon compared to gasoline or believe other
types of energy, such as hydrogen, are more promising long-term replacements
for petroleum.
There's some validity in those criticisms. More research is needed to make
ethanol ever more efficient and to further explore alternative fuels.
But advocates also can make a strong case that ethanol has been good for the
country — and especially good for Iowa.
On the day of the bill signing, seven representatives of the Iowa Renewable
Fuels Association visited the Register with a good story to tell. Iowa leads the
nation in renewable-fuels production. Twenty-five ethanol refineries are operating
now, and four additional refineries and two expansions are under way. By yearend, Iowa's production capacity will represent about a third of the nation's
projected total. As of late 2005, the industry had created 4,250 direct and indirect
jobs, according to the association. Those jobs help keep rural communities viable
and offer new career opportunities for Iowa's young people — and older Iowans,
too.
Ethanol is a good fit for Iowa not just because it's the nation's No. 1 producer of
corn, typically ethanol's primary ingredient. The foresight of early champions
helped, and so did the brainpower of Iowa State University's chemists and
engineers and top plant scientists at companies like Pioneer and Monsanto.
They continue to improve corn genetics to boost yields and to refine enzymes
that will allow converting corn stalks and other plant material into ethanol.
Ethanol production adds value to corn in a succession of steps that plow money
back into the local economy. Besides producing ethanol, the plants produce
livestock feed as a byproduct. That feed can make raising cattle more viable in
Iowa. The cattle's manure, in turn, can be used as fertilizer, to grow more corn,
and the cycle starts anew.
"It's a closed-loop system. On our farm, we're fertilizing two-thirds of our corn
from livestock manure," said David Nelson, a Belmond farmer and chairman of
Midwest Grain Processors at Lakota. "We grow the grain, ship it off to the ethanol
plant, it comes back through the feed, back to the ground and away we go
again."
And plant operators are continually introducing innovations to extract more value,
said Monte Shaw, executive director of the association. Plants are spinning corn
oil off the distillers dried grains for use as a feedstock for biodiesel, he said.
Some are looking at burning the distillers grains instead of using natural gas.
"The plant looks the same on the outside, but what's going on inside is a lot
different," Shaw said.
So how could Iowa keep its edge as the nation's top renewable-fuels producer?
Two key suggestions from the association representatives:
• Grow the livestock industry in an environmentally friendly way. Selling livestock
feed is an important revenue source for the ethanol plants.
• Help ensure a well-trained workforce is available to operate the plants.
Community colleges can provide packages of courses in chemistry and computer
operations to upgrade skills of current workers and train new ones.
Improved processes and enzymes will allow ethanol to be made economically
from any number of materials, such as switchgrass or wood chips — at some
point. But that may be five or 10 years or longer away.
There's no good reason that corn and cornstalks can't be a viable part of the mix
for years to come — or that Iowa can't remain the epicenter of ethanol
production.