By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last year’s federal renewable fuels standard (RFS) dictates that by 2022, at least 36 billion gallons of fuel produced in the United States must classify as biofuel. The RFS also requires it to be derived from various sources, less than half from corn.

One might have expected the National Corn Growers Assoc. biennial Corn Utilization & Technology Conference in Kansas City last week to focus heavily on maize-based ethanol – and to some extent, it did, touching upon yield potential and understanding enzymes and starches from a scientific point of view. But it also showed those in the corn industry potential supplements and alternatives to maize-based ethanol.

Unpredictable

Bill Hudson, founder of the ProExporter Network and described by one corn grower as “one of the foremost analysts in business today,” spoke about the financial aspect of energy.

In the first quarter of 2008 alone, he said OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) saw revenues of $750 billion. As that revenue has gone up over the past several quarters, he said, the value of the American dollar – a mark of a country’s power – has decreased by a similar rate. He then quoted an oil company CEO who commented how difficult it was to gauge where oil prices would go.

“Why is it so hard to accept the truth of that saying?” Hudson asked, pointing out the U.S. Department of Energy particularly refuses, putting out an annual forecast of crude oil prices – which he said are always off the mark. “For the past 25 years, they haven’t even come close … On what planet did they do this study?”
Hudson didn’t say much that those attending the conference didn’t already know or suspect: namely, that corn has been in intense competition for acres; that RFS policy is driven by the prices America pays for crude oil; and, as he put it, “I can see an explosion this year, if the weather doesn’t cooperate (for growing).”
He added the growth in demand of corn for ethanol is higher than the rate of growth in other demands for corn. As of June 3, he said ethanol was 80 cents per gallon cheaper than petroleum, even without the 51-cent federal blender’s credit, because U.S. ethanol producers are coming online with high capacity. Without that credit, though, he said petroleum’s value would be the equivalent of $160 a barrel instead of around $130.

As for competition from abroad? “I just don’t think there’s that much sugar in Brazil to make that much of a difference,” Hudson said.

Sorghum as fuel

Of the 36 billion gallons of biofuel, the government wants 16 billion to derive from cellulose sources. In addition, Dr. William Rooney of Texas A&M University guessed that tapping into inedible sources for renewable fuel would help quell some “food versus fuel” criticism of corn ethanol.

Rooney, a professor of plant breeding and genetics, explained any plant specifically engineered for biofuel needs to produce high yields, would be more desirable as a perennial instead of an annual and, ideally, can be harvested year-round. He also said researchers may be able to use transgenic traits they would never introduce into a food crop.

“It’s going to take a lot of different crops,” he said, adding he sees the U.S. South and Southeast as regions ripe for such growing potential – they normally receive good rainfall and have a long growing season thanks to milder temperatures than other parts of the country not being used for food crops.

Switchgrass, sugarcane, miscanthus and sorghum are the main plants on cellulosic researchers’ radars right now, he said; of the four, sorghum is the only annual. Though traditional sorghum is used for livestock feed, Rooney said he has been working on sweet and energy varieties that could be grown exclusively for biofuel production.

Sweet sorghum produces sugar and starch, as well as biomass, and can be grown and harvested in much the same way as sugarcane.
Rooney said sorghum could be grown in sugarcane off-seasons to make use of the land and specialized equipment. Energy sorghum doesn’t produce sugar or grain and would be purely for biofuel usage.

“We don’t worry about feeding an animal (with it),” he said. “We simply worry about accumulating biomass.”

He explained forage sorghum usually produces about 12 tons per acre, and he believes these specialized varieties could eventually produce upwards of 15 tons.