Sentences with phrase «crops into ethanol»

This has resulted in more land and resources being diverted from feed / food crops into ethanol crop production, essentially lowering the availability of all other feed / food crops.

A new study shows that burning crops such as corn and switchgrass to create electricity to power electric vehicles would actually yield more transportation miles than turning those crops into ethanol.

The method would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than turning the crops into ethanol and using that ethanol in vehicles with internal combustion engines.

Bioenergy challenges a sustainable food future most directly when government policy causes diversion of food crops into ethanol or biodiesel for transportation.

The prevailing approach to biofuels production is to convert plant sugars from traditional food crops into ethanol using centuries - old fermentation practices.

Turning the food crop into ethanol would not be the best use of the energy embedded in the kernels» carbohydrates, according to a new study in Science.

Not exact matches

And Brazil, arguably the world leader in making ethanol from crops, has been turning sugar cane into fuel for nearly three decades — a process that is 30 % cheaper than corn - based production in the U.S.

By turning crops such as corn, sugarcane and palm oil into biofuels — whether ethanol, biodiesel, or something else — proponents hope to reap the benefits of the carbon soaked up as the plants grow to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted when the resulting fuel is burned.

Currently more than 40 per cent of the US corn crop goes into producing ethanol, which is mostly mixed with gasoline to fuel conventional cars.

Previous studies on switchgrass plots suggested that ethanol made from the plant would yield anywhere from 343 % to 700 % of the energy put into growing the crop and processing it into biofuel.

The key factors determining carbon emissions for corn - based ethanol are (1) whether coal or natural gas is used to power the ethanol plant, (2) whether distillers grains are dried or sold wet, and (3) whether expansion of corn acreage comes mainly from reduced acreage of lower - value crops or if idled land is brought into production.

The researchers examined three ways of using sunlight to power cars: a) the traditional method of converting corn or other plants to ethanol; b) converting energy crops into electricity for BEVs rather than producing ethanol; and C) using PVs to convert sunlight directly into electricity for BEVs.

This extra water use stems from the irrigation of crops like corn that are turned into ethanol, or in the production of the electricity for recharging hybrids.

Researchers continue to struggle to develop «second generation» biofuels that they hope will use enzymes to turn cellulose from wood and crop waste into ethanol.

Corn ethanol — For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the stomachs of cattle and poultry destined for kitchen tables.

These «biorefineries» will convert widely available, inexpensive, organic materials such as agricultural residues, high - content biomass crops, wood residues, and cellulose in municipal solid wastes into ethanol.

In fact, over the entire life cycle of growing and harvesting crops, turning them into fuel, transporting and using them in vehicles, ethanol and biodiesel emit as much CO2 as petroleum — and require infinitely more acreage.

Almost all of these projects differ from the ethanol being blended into the US gasoline supply in that they are made from inedible feedstocks, which sidesteps one of the critiques often leveled at biofuels: that they compete in with crops raised for people or livestock, driving up food prices.

This reflects the reality that approximately 40 percent of the corn crop now goes into ethanol production, a dramatic rise since the first ethanol mandates were put in place in 2005.

So, more attention and resources are going into the producing of ethanol and other biofuel types from second - generation feedstocks, sometimes known as non-food crops.

More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel cars last year.