Ethanol prices have stayed surprisingly strong despite low oil prices, but in general “times are tough” for the U.S. ethanol industry, said Matt Roberts, a CFAES agricultural economist, in a story and audio interview posted yesterday by Brownfield Ag News.
ethanol
How fungi genes may help us make ethanol
Fungal diseases such as Stagonospora nodorum and Magnaporthe oryzae cause significant losses to wheat and rice crops throughout the world. Now a scientist with OARDC (the research arm of our college) is trying to use these bad fungi for good—taking some of their genes to breed bioenergy crops that could make ethanol production cheaper and more efficient. Read more …
Squeezing corn
Corn can give us more ethanol, a biofuel, and Fred Michel, a CFAES biosystems engineer (pictured), and Cleveland’s Arisdyne Systems Inc. are working together to get it. Arisdyne’s new “cavitation” technology produces 2-3 percent more ethanol from the same amount of corn, and Michel is helping to test, validate, and refine how it works. Adopting cavitation could boost the U.S. ethanol industry’s annual revenue by an estimated $500-plus million.