Lots of you guys have very good points on the future of Ethanol. But the one negative thing I hear from you and fear, is again our goverments involvement. To bad they (our goverment) isn’t willing to help find other ways of reducing fuel costs or other ways to produce fuel for us…
I am about as political as a fish. i think that if there is a way for me to give my money to americans then i will. i believe that farmers, given the choice will buy soy diesel at a competitive price to straight diesel. they grow it and since they spread manure and buy milk will use what they can to help them selves and our country. is corn the answer, maybe not but as what was mentioned earlier how many millions of acres sit idle in set aside. money the government gives to people to not grow anything but weeds.
in my opinion farms are what made the country strong and will do it again. maybe we need to grow or learn to grow plants that have a higher sugar content. the countries that are making this bio change realistic are doing so on other than corn. they are uses sugar cane and other high sugar plants.
anyway before i get crazy, i just think that if you depend on anyone, even those you know, you are doomed to fail.
i believe that you are right in saying that there are some major subsidies going on. how much does the war in iraq and us not bombing the hell out of the rest of the sand countries costing you. and as a side note the last time i checked crude oil was down, how much i am not sure what the top price was, but i am pretty sure it is around at least $15-20 a barrel. if i am wrong i will buy two gallons and burn it in my yard tomarrow.
walleyebuster5 You sir are right on the money . This is one thing that is really hurt us all in the long run …but I have no fix for it either….. 
Take the job it will be here for sometime !!!! good luck
here is a really good, but some what lengthy read about ethanol. i’ll let you all guess what i think about ethanol after you read up. 
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What type of job would you be taking? The ethanol discussion is a good one, but I would look at what skills you would be acquiring in the position. If it furthers your knowledge and skill base, it will help you if and when you need to find another job. I think there is no doubt that ethanol will be around long enough to keep you employed for several years. So, if it was me, I would look at the job content and if you would enjoy doing it. Even if the ethanol usage dries up, there will be other jobs created within the alternative fuels industry, and you could put yourself in a position to obtain one of those jobs by gaining this experience.
Thanks all! I’m a computer nerd by trade. I’ve got the skills, not that they don’t need to be updated everyday in this field, but I have a “skill”. I would be managing the computer infrastructure for a company with 6 plants, if I got the job.
I have yet to even get an offer, but I’m excited about the oppurtunity and one of my biggest fears is the bottom dropping out of the industry and losing everything I’ve worked so hard to get. What excites me most is it’s a small company(100 employees) where I’ll be part of the ground roots and get a chance to grow with the company.
I’m leaving a job of 7.5 years, started out as the 80th employee or so, now we have over 650. However with new management comes change, some of which I feel I won’t fit into sadly. I believe in what my company does, but as with lots of relationships, it just feels like it’s time to move on.
All that said, I have to do what is best for my family, and paying the bills is just that. So, thanks again for all the opinions and thanks for not turing this into something it was not intended to be. 
Good luck John!
However, I’m kinda guessing you will be just fine!!!!! 
It may be that corn is so readily available for the industry to use. The countries using sugarcane because of its high sugar content seems to produce ethonol easier and that leads me to a question why don’t they use sorghum then. Sorghum is used to make mollases and is very similar to sugarcane and is high in sugar and like sugarcane its easier to turn into ethonol. Them useing corn right now may be because its so readily available and helps the farmers get a decent price after years of being so low.
The local ADM plant here in town makes ethonol at about a million gallons a week the last i heard a few years ago, maybe more now and is expanding every day, thier constantly building onto that plant. There is no polution at that plant because of the wastewater processing facility they have right there at the site, so when it comes to polution that can be taken care of. ADM uses alot of water processing thier local products and i’ll bet they use thier own wells. Thier right on the water table by a nearby creek and I don’t think thier doing any damage to the local water, using to much or polluting it. Im curious now why sorghum isn’t also being used.
If you can make some money working for them and further your job experience go for it.
Just do not expect it to be a long term job (just like every where else). In todays world not to many people keep the same employer for long.
I think it is a farce and will be short lived. They could not have picked a worse crop than corn to base this on. Mark my word this is going to screw things up. One example is soybeans. What do suppose is going to happen to all the products made from soybeans when the soybean farmers all switch to corn. That is one example. Even Castro had it right when he blasted the US for doing this.
Because there is government money up for grabs people are grabbing.
a farce and short lived ? kinda like the internet…. NOT !!! Kooty, I would say go for it, Ethanol may only have a hundred or so years run (corn or other based) but computers are here to stay, so I do not think you picked a bad field.
big g
Here is a little info I found. Of course who knows if it is true or just somebody writing an opinion for oil companies. I would agree that corn is the start but not the solution. I would think working in the alternative energy industry because it will be the future with the shrinking supply of oil and higher world demand. Here is the info:
Ethanol, methanol etc. are great, but only in small doses. Like all other biofuels it is grown with massive fossil fuel inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) and suffer from horribly low, sometimes negative, EROEIs. The production of ethanol, for instance, requires six units of energy to produce just one. That means it consumes more energy than it produces and thus will only serve to compound our energy deficit.
In addition, there is the problem of where to grow the stuff, as we are rapidly running out of arable land on which to grow food, let alone fuel. This is no small problem as the amount of land it takes to grow even a small amount of biofuel is quite staggering. As journalist Lee Dye points out in a July 2004 article entitled “Old Policies Make Shift From Foreign Oil Tough:”
. . . relying on corn for our future energy needs would
devastate the nation’s food production. It takes 11 acres to
grow enough corn to fuel one automobile with ethanol for
10,000 miles, or about a year’s driving, Pimentel says. That’s
the amount of land needed to feed seven persons for the
same period of time. And if we decided to power all of our
automobiles with ethanol, we would need to cover 97
percent of our land with corn, he adds.
According to a Fortune Magazine article entitled “Ethanol Could Leave the World Hungry”, emphasis added:
The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy
woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global
fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in
alternative energy – promises a guilt-free way to keep our
gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural
resources could have consequences even more drastic than,
say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the
world hungry. One tankful of [ethanol] could feed one
person for a year.
Finally, geologist Byron King explains how small the nation’s ethanol production is when compared to its colossal petroleum consumption:
. . . the forecast annual U.S. production of 11 billion gallons
of ethanol translates into about 262 million barrels of that
type of fuel produced over the course of a year. And I am
not even adjusting for the energy density of ethanol, which
is far lower, only 59.5%, than an equivalent barrel of
petroleum. . . What appears at first to be an impressive
number in terms of energy supply (11 billion gallons per
year) is actually relatively small. In fact, it is almost in the
“rounding error” of the nation’s daily liquid fuel consumption
of about 21 million barrels of oil per day.
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One example is soybeans. What do suppose is going to happen to all the products made from soybeans when the soybean farmers all switch to corn.
Chicago prices today put corn at $3.39 and only went up $0.02.
Soybeans are at $8.74 and went up over $0.13
When soybeans are pushing $9/b…….MONEY is to be MADE! More money there than corn!
Cost to raise an acre of corn is about $300. Typical yield we will say is an average of 150/b. That is about a $300/acre profit today…..average with “today’s” prices.
Cost to raise an acre of soybeans is about $130. Typical yied we will say is an average of 50/b. That is about a $307/acre profit today……..averae with “today’s” prices.
Then, if you get a farmer who contract with Green Giant to put peas in, you can run a crop of soybeans afterwards. THIS IS MONEY NOW AT $8.75/b!!!!!
The crops that just don’t have high volumes anymore are the oats and wheat. There just isn’t much money in it and there hasn’t been for many years.
was listening to AM talk radio this AM and they were announcing the Orange County Chopper made to run on E-85. This chopper is touring Iowa and the guys were talking about the energy consumption to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. The conversation said that due to new technologies, ethanol energy produced is now 35% greater than energy consumed. I agree, the ethanol industry is here to stay, not in the current form, but derrived from other sources, not just corn. It is a step in the right direction, the biggest complaint to date, how far one has to drive just to find an E-85 pump. Why are the big oil companies not putting in pumps? Dumb question, I already know the answer. I have a buddy working at Jolly Time popcorn, your going to see an increase in the price of your popcorn. They had to double the price for contracted acres of popcorn, otherwise the farmers would have planted other more profitable crops.
Here in the Twin Cities you can find the pumps everywhere. In fact we need to use premium in our car and the station right by our house took out the premium pumps and put E85 in. 
Not that this has anything to do with taking a job, but I would assume the other complaint is the lower gas mileage. I was looking at the sticker on a Titan last weekend and it looks like it could be as bad as 100 miles less (highway) using E85. I think I read that the reason the gas mileage is so bad is the cars are still better optimized for regular gas. I assume this would change once E85 is more readily available in other parts of the country.
Kooty, it really comes down to your gut feeling, you’re going to do what’s right for you & your family. Just remember, the person who doesn’t take a chance now is haunted by the “what ifs” forever. Good luck. 
Kooty, I submitted my resume to an Ethonal company this morning so if your going down them i’m going down
Kooty i wouldn’t worry about it too much, if your that skilled with computers it sounds like you don’t have anything to worry about. With all the major building going on building these new ethonol plants im sure there building them for the futures needs in mind. Knowing something about how they build new plants they are probably building with a 10 to 20 year outlook if not longer. With the refinments coming on how to produce ethonol more effeciently and bio deisel i don’t see these home grown fuels going by the wayside any time soon. 10 years down the road you may see even more synthetic fuels being brought in to use and too me with the expansion of this field i would think your pretty safe in taking that job. I personally think its a secure future for atleast 20 years or more. By that time if your still working in that field and there is any change you could switch to just about any field you wanted. Id go for it, especially if there good benefits involved.
Kooty, go for it!
I worked at the now closed as heck Gopher State Ethanol in the old Schmidt brewery till the minute they turned corn off. It was by far the greatest and most interesting job I have ever held and would still be there had some things went in a different direction. Believe me when I tell you you are making a good choice and if it doesnt pan out you then have the skills to put you into that industry elsewhere, its a win win situation. If the hours are rotating, like alot of refinery and fuel related positions are, as a sportsperson that is golden!!!! Short story for ya, the Guy who taught me quite a bit while I was there cam ein there with no secondary education, worked his way up to the very top and became CEO of the plant within a few years time, he now is running ethanol plants all over the country and globe. Getting in at the early stage is going to benefit you come years down the road when these plants that are being discussed for construction start sprouting up everywhere. I would go back into it but its not close to home where I want to be and I found employment that I like just about as much. My 2 cents and I can find a dozen other that will reiterate what I just said.
Go to mike’s web site look under water consumption. Wastewater, recycled, and steam condensation !!!!!! You just can’t believe everything you hear or read, can you?
The ethanol industry is currently able to stay afloat only due to federal government subsidies. Whether the ethanol industry will ever be self-sufficient (i.e. able to make due without taxpayer dollars) remains to be seen. Even if the ethanol industry is able to someday make it on its own, I don’t expect government supports to end–there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program. So, a career in ethanol seems safe to me.
Hopefully the federal government will match the cash give-aways to the ethanol program with land conservation funding. Government subsidies have pushed corn prices up beyond where they would be if the market determined them. As a result, farmers are plowing up everything they can to grow more corn. I come from a long line of farmers, so I can’t say I blame them–it is a business, after all. I also collect a farm rent check and CRP payment, so I am probably a bit of a hypocrite.
The costs of increased corn (and soybean) production to uplands game, to say nothing of fisheries, are immense. Corn ground provides little cover for wildlife, and is more erodable than less-profitable wheat, oats, or hay. The soil that runs off corn ground clogs up rivers, streams, and lakes, hurting our fisheries. Corn also requires a lot of pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer, all of which are bad for water quality as well.
Saving quail habitat, driftless area brook trout, or native grasslands doesn’t have the public appeal of seemingly cheaper gasoline. (When the cost of the tax bill paid to support ethanol is figured in, ethanol gas isn’t actually cheaper at all for anyone who pays federal taxes.) I am not optimistic that the government will do anything to undo the ecological damage done by the headlong stampede towards ethanol production.
Well, I had my interview this morning. It went as well it could possibly have. I admit, I did drink a bit of the cool aid about the industry. It’s very interesting hearing an internal perspective vs. what I’ve found and read on the internet.
All in all, if we can come to a financial agreement, I’ll most likely accept the position. The only thing holding me back is the commute. It will add about 15 minutes one way to my drive. That may not sound like a lot, but in the metro, 15 minutes can turn into an hour in the blink of an eye. Thanks for all the opinions!!
John
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it takes 1 gallon of fuel to produce 1.3 gallons of ethanol
with corn (this is not a good margin)
Not trying to change the subject in the thread, but I hear this comment a lot regarding the ethanol industry. What you don’t hear is what the oil industry’s input to output ratio is for fuel. I can’t remember what the number was exactly, but i’m pretty sure it was 3-4 units of output for every unit of input.
E3 Biofuels has a plant in Mead Nebraska that has a 40+ unit output for every unit of input. Its a closed loop facility and it is very interesting. Do a google search on it at read about the plant in Mead.
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