I tell you, if my Great Grandfather knew that we were now using pretty much the same corn wiskey to run our cars that he was bootlegging I am sure he would love to see the plant that makes it.  So now for your viewing pleasure i will show you the ethanol plant that i got a chance to visit just before school got out in my Senior Seminar class.

This is the plant that we visited and below is a picture of my classmates that came along.

First the Corn is trucked in or brought in by train as above.  Then it is taken up to the top of this tower where it is milled on the way down by very loud grinders as below. We got to climb up the tower and see the different grinders.

Then from there it gets taken and added to acid so that it can be broken down to its base sugars.  After this this mixture is then taken and added to the brewing tower where yeast is added.  The yeast feeds on the sugar from the corn and on of its byproducts is ethanol.  After this process the mixture is called beer.  Seen in the picture below and has a bready smell.

The ethanol is then separated from this mixture by distillation.  Distillation can only give us 180 proof ethanol, which for those who do not know is 90% ethanol and 10% water.  We have something today that my great-grandpa never had in his distillation process though.  This plant and those like it use something called a molecular sieve to get the remaining water out.  It is a filter that absorbes the remaining water to leave only ethanol.

The ethanol is then tested and denatured with a little gasoline making unfit for human consumption.  This is done using gasoline as well as a few other things. The test that is going on in the picture is a density test to see how much water is in the water.

The remaining portion of the mixture known as the beer is all the protein and good stuff from the corn.  This stuff is no good for the production of ethanol, but it is good for feed.  It is dried to about 10% and is called Dried Distillers Grain (DDG).  This is used to feed all sorts of animals from cattle to pigs.

This pile was being pushed around by a big ol’ tractor.  It was pretty cool.  It was neat to be able to see the process by which ethanol was made.  At the time of the tour our guide told us that ethanol was running about 50 cents cheaper than gasoline.  Hopefully it could get even better as new technologies are found out.  The problem right now is that due to the increased demand for corn the prices are going up.  Hopefully the prices will not rise to the point where ethanol is more expensive than gasoline. 

The technology is interesting, but i do not think that it is really the thing that will solve our problems.  I do feel like it is a step in the right direction in this time of high gas prices and high carbon emissions.  Who knows what will happen in the coming years, but whatever is done, I am sure that the technology will be very interesting indeed.

Ok that is enough of science for now…i am tired.  I think I wont make such a long post next time…