The future of ethanol

Folks, for you that are invested in ethanol production, I have bad news. The future for ethanol looks bleak.

Several things are happening. First off is that bio butanol is catching up with ethanol. We all are familiar with the smear job that has been done on ethanol. Bio butanol is a better blender fuel than Ethanol. Ethanol got the nod as our oxygenator because it was the best option at the time. Bio butanol was too costly to compete, even tho it was known to be a better oxygenator and a drop in fuel, with greater energy density than butanol.

Now that has changed. Butanol is successfully riding the Moores Curve to lower costs and easier production than previously was possible

As soon as the politicians and the anti ethanol people find out about bio butanol, there will be a strong movement to replace ethanol with butanol.

We should not fight this, but convert our ethanol plants to butanol plants. This is already starting to happen on a small scale. The Moores Curve will continue to prevail with butanol, as it has been doing with ethanol, and in time the switch will be made.

The other bad news is that smaller independent ethanol plants will be smothered by big oil. The oil companies are buying up ethanol plants and installing infrastructure on a large scale. The ethanol industry, up until it crashes and the switch is made to butanol, will become of massive volume and razor thin margins. Small operators will be squeezed out.

This is why small operators need to add both new feedstocks and new products to their operations. The whole industry is too volatile to depend on too many eggs in one basket. The ability to shift emphasis from feedstock to feedstock, product to product will be essential to long term success.