A coalition of farm organizations believes there is a solid
case for building a plant to produce ethanol from corn stalks.
The group, calling
itself “a value chain consortium” presented its final report which it says “clearly
demonstrated that:
· the region could supply cornstalks and other biomass crops at
competitive rates;
· more than 250,000 tonnes of cornstalks could be aggregated for a cellulosic
sugar facility; and
· a bioprocessing cooperative model where agricultural producers are
both feedstock suppliers and co-investors in the processing infrastructure was
the most viable structure examined, benefiting everyone in the value chain."
The report was
prepared by researchers at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus.
The consortium included
the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Grain Farmers of Ontario, AGRIS
Co-operative, Ontario AgriFood Technologies, BioIndustrial Innovation Centre,
Midori Renewables, BioAmber and LANXESS.
Federal and provincial
government officials participated as advisors.
On the other hand,
author Maurice Hladik who wrote “Demystifying Food from Farm to Fork, worked
for a company hoping to set up an ethanol plant using straw and stover from
farms and found that it won’t work because of the expense of gathering the raw
material.
The plant would need
so much material that it would have to be gathered from hundreds of miles, making
the idea uneconomic, he said the investors concluded.
Of course, given the clout of the farm lobby, they might persuade governments to either lay down a mandate that cellulostic ethanol be blended into gasoline and/or that the venture be highly subsidized.
