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Show Farm and Garden Guide 1 1 Farmers hit hard Fuel costs rise, alcohol use explored By GENE MALONE Farm Bureau News Service Energy costs led the way in farm cost production last year. Taken together, all fuel and energy costs increased by 53 percent last year. Diesel fuel alone rose by 83 percent. It isnt hard to see why farmers are as sensitive as anyone, and more than most, about energy. Fifty years ago when horses and mules were the power units for the nations farm work, farmers grew their own fuel. They used about one third of their acreage to feed the work horses. Today, with energy costs soaring and the nation having become dependent on petroleum, half of which we have been importing from the enterprising cartel known as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), many farmers are starting to think once again about the possibility of producing their own fuel. The byword of this thinking so far has been caution. Many questions remain unanswered about the possible use of alcohol as a fuel alternative. However, each increase in the price of oil brings us closer to the reality of alcohol as a replacement for at least some of our petroleum fuel. The questions remain, what fuels can farmers produce and use on the farm? At what price will it be done? Will it pay? Vlftiat byproducts are there? How can these be used? One researcher who has taken great interest in alcohol fuel is Merold Yates of the Illinois Farm Bureau. He concludes that for farmers to produce all of their fuel needs from corn converted into alcohol would require 16 bushels of corn per acre. With the annual national average corn production now at a little more than 100 bushels per acre, the conversion to alcohol fuel could be done with 16 percent of the acreage now or half as much as when the fuel was feed for the animals that did the farm work. Some of the other statistics about alcohol production are less optimistic. For example, the fact that when alcohol production uses petroleum fuel it takes 130 B.T.U.s of energy to produce 100 B.T.U.s of alcohol. There hardly seems to be any percentage in that. However, it might be noted that it takes 300 B.T.U.s of coal to produce 100 B.T.U.s of electricity. Most people share the idea that technology improvements will eventualy correct much of the inefficiency. Two fanners that are doing something about it on their own are Ernie Glienke from Aurelia, Iowa and Everett Christensen from Powell, Wyoming. These men are producing ethanol on a small scale, using prototype stills. Each constructed his own still from inexpensive materials. Each is producing alcohol from products that can be grown on his own farm. They are finding out what will work and some things that will not work. The important thing is they are learning. Both share the opinion that alcohol will provide much of the answer to the fuel shortage. Someone will produce it and they are involved. Ernie Glienke is an opinion leader. He is the president of the Cheroke County Farm Bureau in Iowa. Glienke has a small still which he built for $700 not including his time in putting it together. He doesnt know how many hours of family labor went into it. Glienke says, all that is needed is a good welder and a torch. The materials for his still were obtained from a plumbing supply house and a junk yard. The Glienke family produces about two gallons of 180 to 190 proof alcohol a day running their still about three days a week. That is a far cry from energy but they are learning and they hope to produce enough alcohol with which to run small engines around their farm next summer. From that they will get an idea how the engines perform on that type of fuel. Glienke has several other advantages that a big scale producer of alcohol might not have. He operates a 300 acre dairy farm, so he has a ready market for the principle byproduct of the still, a high protein mash that is left after the alcohol is taken out of the grain. The use of the valuable byproduct for feed helps to reduce the cost of the alcohol production. Another advantage is that Glienke uses waste material, corn cobs, for fuel. He thinks methane gas, a product of animal manure, could also be used to power the still. Such cost savers may be the difference between alcohol production being economically feasible or just a pipe dream. Another farmer producing alcohol on his farm is experimentally Everett Christensen of Powell, Wyoming. Christensen addressed the Wyoming Farm Bureau annual meeting last December, providing some interesting observation about his alcohol production. He, too, has a homemade still constructed for a little over $500. Christensen says, People who are talking about distilleries are taking about an investment of $50,000 to $100,000. compares starting out with a stainless steel distillery to starting farming with a tractor with a cab on He it. Christensen separates the two cycles of the process of making alcohol, the germentation and the distillation. He emphasizes the need to go slowly, learn how to do it and use techniques that work for your Iowa farmer Ernie Glienke checks a sample of alcohol being produced in his prototype still. President of the Cherokee County Farm Bureau, Glienke hopes to produce enough alcohol for testing in small engines on his farm this summer. situation and that can be made to pay. He uses solar heat for his still, with an old hot water heater for an auxiliary unit for use when it is needed, usually at night. Christensens vat is an old milk cooler. He is apprehensive about all the people out trying to sell stills commercially. My fear is that if we get a lot of these stills out, some of them will not work, Christensen said. He advises farmers who buy a still to get a written guarantee that it will work. I know of a still thats putting out 500 gallons of vinegar, said the Wyoming farmer. Christensen believes that the time has come when farmers have to do something and he says, It can be done. He contends that some of the information claiming that the conversion from grain to alcohol is not economically feasible, will be changed by technology. The practical Christensen says that production of 200 proof alcohol may not be economical, but water is cheap. He says a car will run 0 better on proof than on alcohol. straight He visualizes technology for auto and other engines which will make alcohol a useful alternative fuel for the future. Christensen uses barley, getting about two gallons of 200 proof alcohol from a bushel of barley. A batch for his solar powered cooker is 140-16- four bushels of barley and 160 gallons of water. After a week of fermentation (skipping the first enzyme stage) about ten percent of it is alcohol. The Wyoming farmer thinks many farmers can find enough material for a still around their farmsteads and in the fencerows. If they have to buy it all, it will cost less than $1,000, he said. Christensen figures that with $4.50 a bushel barley and amortization of the cost of this still he produces alcohol for $.50 a gallon. You beat that one! he concluded. A lot of people may be trying to beat it. Last September there were 579 approved applications for experimental alcohol stills on record with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Another 1,672 applications were pending at that time. By March 7, 1980, approved applications had increased to 2,482 and there were 1,424 more pending. If very many of these potential alcohol producers can come anywhere close to Christensens cost record, the use of 16 percent of the nations crop acres for farm produced fuel, may become a reality in the future. Some of the proposed subsidies such as the 30 to 40 cents per gallon income tax credit and the extension of the 4 cent a gallon federal excise tax exemption for gasohol, could further encourage American farmers to help reduce our nations dependence on imported oil by producing some of their own fuel. |