Brief Overview of Ethanol

With an ever increased focus on alternatives fuels to petroleum and its effects on the planet, the mass production of Ethanol has helped create an entire industry around it, hence the named industry.  What is Ethanol?  Industry definitions say that Ethanol is made from starch crops, such as grain and corn, when the sugar from these crops are fermented into Ethanol and distilled into it’s final form.  Ethanol has its primary use in transportation applications.  The Ethanol industry came about when countries such as Brazil began mass production of crops and facilities to produce alternative fuels to gasoline.  The Ethanol industry has grown ever since in countries such as the United States where corn, soy, and grain are major crops.

The Ethanol Industry

What is the industry made up of, and how large is this industry now.  The Ethanol industry is made of a range of farmer cooperatives, small and large corporations, cooperatives between business and governments, and even whole nations are involved in the Ethanol industry.  Many of the pioneer refining plants in the Ethanol industry were built by cooperatives made up of farmers looking to gain larger markets for their grain.  The first use in the US can trace its earliest roots back to 1908 with the original Ford Model T which could run modified on alcohol.  In Brazil the Ethanol industry was officially born in 1973 when the government set serious focus on alternative fuel production; this made Brazil the first known national Ethanol producer.  The US government created the Farm Credit System to help the farm cooperatives build the first plants.  Later, the banking industry and private investors began lending credit to continue the growth of the industry in the US.

Major Ethanol Industry Producers

Today there are two nations which are responsible for about 70% of the world Ethanol fuel production, the US and Brazil.  Brazil is listed as the second largest Ethanol producer and the largest national exporter of Ethanol fuel.  The US is the largest producer nation, with its Ethanol industry providing mainly for the American market.  Other countries, such as Australia, Sweden and the Phillipenes have created incentive programs and initiatives which will help alternative fuel production with the focus being on biofuels being the standard for most forms of motorized transportation.  Major oil producers such as BP and Shell have entered the Ethanol industry as well.   With the efforts of both national and private investments, Ethanol as a useable fuel continues to gain momentum.

Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol and the world’s largest exporter, and it is considered to have the world’s first sustainable biofuels economy and the biofuel industry leader.[
Brazil’s 30-year-old ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used for process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy),
CSR's Sarina distillery and the Rocky Point distillery are located in Queensland and produce ethanol from molasses feedstock. The Manildra Group also produces fuel ethanol from waste starch and grain at a facility near Nowra, New South Wales.

Ethanol has been used as fuel in the United States since at least 1908 with the Ford Model T which could be modified to run on either gasoline or pure alcohol. Henry Ford designed the famed Model T Ford to run on alcohol saying that it was "the fuel of the future". Ethanol was used well into the 1920's and 1930's to fuel cars alongside an effort to sustain a US ethanol program. Although these early efforts failed, oil supply disruptions in the Middle East and environmental concerns over the use of lead as a gasoline octane booster renewed interest in ethanol in the late 1970s. Ethanol production in the United States grew from 175 million gallons in 1980 to 1.4 billion gallons in 1998, with support from Federal and State ethanol tax subsidies and the mandated use of high-oxygen gasolines.

In the early days of the fuel ethanol industry, many of the pioneering plants were built by farmers who formed cooperatives to get more and better markets for their grain. Starved for credit, the cooperatives staged equity drives where farmers invested their hard-earned cash to build the plants with help from the Farm Credit System.

The Renewable Fuels Association counts 113 U.S. ethanol distilleries in operation and another 78 under construction.

The world's top ethanol producers in 2006 were the United States with 4.855 billion U.S. liquid gallons and Brazil with 4.49 bg.[10] The United States, together with Brazil accounted for 70 percent of all ethanol production, with total world production of 13.5 billion gallons (40 million tonnes). When accounting just for fuel ethanol production in 2007, the U.S. and Brazil are responsible for 88% of the 13.1 billion gallons total world production.

Tags: Ethanol Industry, Ethanol Producer

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