Gretch asked about corn based ethanol. Did you know hemp yields 4 times more ethanol than corn?

Question

Did you know prohibition was rammed through congress at the behest of oil barons to supress ethanol and alcohol as a fuel for motor vehicles in order to create a monopoly for petroleum based fuels?

Did you know that farmers had distillation devices to make their own tractor and truck fuel, but prohibition laws made it possible for the alphabet soup federal agencies to go in and shut them down (destroy them)?

Did you know hemp was banned as an agricultural crop because of it's high-yield when producing fuel?

Did you know that with ultra high mileage auto technology and ethanol produced by hemp, we could be fuel self sufficient in 4 years?

Did you know that all the hoopla about oil is nothing more than a ruse to create bigger government with more regulatory power?

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Answer 1

First of all, ethanol is perfectly legal.  I own a book by a farmer who runs his stuff on pure alcohol.  Hemp was banned because it's an illegal drug (marijuana).  I'll agree with you on this one.  We could also do the same thing on fuel produced by switchgrass, which yields just as much as hemp.  Why don't we?  Corn is easier.  I'll also agree that the government is getting way to involved in everyday life.

Answer 2

the questuion is not the eathnol but the legality of the hems and as gas, how much we have, or can produce

Answer 3

wow! No I had no idea.

Answer 4

i did not know that, frankly theres a lot  you ask us to swallow wholesale but i imagine there is some truth mixxed in there. thanks for the (rhetorical) questions

Answer 5

Pilgrim, you make many bold assertations without sources for a guy I never heard of--and I know everyone around this business--I work in the hemp industry--the real hemp industry where we grow it and process it and press the seed for oil.  Not the hippie necklace and bong shop end of the business.

I live in Australia, and we grow hemp. In fact, I work for the largest company that processes hemp here (www.ecofibre.com.au).

Ethanol is made right up the road from us:  but they don't make ethanol out of hemp.  And they never will.  And it's not a conspiracy, it's just cheaper to use other stuff.

Yep, you can turn hemp biomass into ethanol.  Some studies say it takes 1.25 liters of petrol to make 1 litre of ethanol.  It depends on the method and it also depends on what hemp is competing against.  Any moonshiner will tell you that the easiest way to make moonshine (ethanol) is from sugar.  (sugarbeets work well) Sugar is cheap and abundant around the world.  Most governments have to support their industries, the price is so low.

We do not make fuel out of it because it is not cost effective to do so (all the brainiacs who calculate the cost of converting hemp into ethanol always seem to forget that the farmer has to be paid).

We pay our farmers $240 per tonne and it costs them about $160 per tonne to grow. We can sell the products for a better price than we could get to try to make fuel out of it. Hemp oil, for example COSTS us over $15 per litre to make--that's $60 per gallon. Then I would have to add a profit. Ethanol is a similiar story, but becomes financially viable when the wholesale price is about $5 per gallon and retail a few bucks more.

But "financially viable" just means we could do it.  It doesn't mean we would--because agricultural waste is cheap or free.  Why would an ethanol producer pay me more than $240 per tonne of my hemp, when he could buy a tonne of corn silks or sugar cane bagass for $40 or $60 per tonne and get an identical yield of ethanol?

It's a business.

We use it for the fibre and pulp. It will never be financially viable to make fuel out of hemp while it is still possible to make ethanol out of garbage and agricultural waste like corns stalks. The farmers DO like to get paid--or they grow something else.

History shows that it was the Dupont corporation-who had just invented nylon--which would compete with hemp for rope, that was the politcal force beyond cannabis prohibition.

There was once a vibrant area of science known as chemurgy--the science of turning agricultural products into fuel and useful chemicals.  The petroleum industry did have a hand in "killing off" that science in general, but they had nothing particularly against hemp.  DuPont did, and it is said that William Randolph Hearst--who had interests in paper forests did lead the vendetta against hemp.  The petroleum industry was actually more worried about peanut oil (to run diesel tractors) than it was about hemp.  Hemp oil is very expensive to burn, and has excellent food qualities -- a much higher use that people are willing to pay $50 per litre ($200 per gallon) for.  Why would I try to sell my hemp oil at $3 or $4 per gallon to compete with regular diesel when I can get $200 per gallon when I sell it for salad dressing?

You will eventually grow hemp in America: Look to North Dakota and the activism going on there. But you will not make fuel from it because the process is not cost effective.

Pilgrim, I get paid the big bucks to know everything about hemp and how to make my shareholders money out of it so the business succeeds.  Don't you think if what you say was true, that I WOULD make fuel out of hemp?

But I don't.  I have thousands of tons of hemp sitting outside of my mill, and I will process it to make other things that sell for upwards of $800-1000 per tonne.

Answer 6

That is a very interesting idea, I sure would like to know where you got that information.

I see making ethanol from corn as a political solution to our energy needs, as it takes way too much energy to produce.

I believe that someday soon we will realize that natural gas is viable solution for automobiles, large fleets of trash trucks and buses are already reaping the benefits of the cost savings and reduced pollution. I would have bought a NGV (Natural Gas Vehicle) years ago if I had known about them. I save over a hundred dollars a month in fuel commuting with a Honda Civic GX. You can pick up used NGVs for less money than their gasoling counterparts. I am lucky to have a fuel station close by open 24/7. Another option is a fueling device hooked up at your home.

Answer 7

Switch Grass that grows native in the Dakota's produces 10 times the amount of Ethanol than corn.  Switch grass is an perennial plant than stays established up to 10 years before reseeding is required.  This grass can be grown almost any were in the US  plus it provides wildlife and nesting cover.  Great for the environment! CC

Answer 8

well howdy Pilgrim, I had heard that corn is a poor source no details, people have been making alcohol for a long time before the government got involved, hemp is not good pot,and it's not the government that is wanting more power but the corporations that own it.

Answer 9

Yes, from what I've read there are many better alternatives for making ethanol than corn (and I live in IL, a corn-growing state)...sugar beets, sugar cane (with which Brazil, I believe, has used to make enough ethanol to be self-sufficient and not import any foreign oil) and quite possibly, hemp.  Unfortunately, the corn lobby and sugar lobby have kept other, possibly better sources of ethanol from reaching the public eye. Another problem caused by this is the price of other products jumping up because as farmers sell more and more corn to be used for ethanol, there is less corn to be used for other things, like animal feed, etc.  This results in the price of feed to go up and conversely, our beef prices, etc.  Typical U.S. politics.

Answer 10

No'' what hemp a tree that making ropes''why would i being given credits''if there is in asia those kinds of tree?

Answer 11

Right-on,years back Grantsburg,Wi was a large producer of Hemp in the near by farms.When it was banned.Didn't know it could be used for fuel?What about sugar beets?they grow a lot of them in Minnesota!!

Answer 12

they really meant it when they said you learn something new everyday. i didnt know you could use hemp for more then making jewelry thats awesome.