The difference between switchgrass & corn is the storage & handling of the raw product. We know how to handle grains, with bins & grain legs and all. Switchgrass will need a lot of storage of round or big rectangular bales.
They have to break down the lignin of the plant to release the sugar from it. This requires an enzyme. Current enzymes are real poor at doing this. Most of the research is in improving the enzyme to do a much better, more efficient, and quicker job of this. Right now it takes more energy fooling around with the enzymes than what is recovered in ethanol. They need better, faster enzymes. We can get to the sugar in switchgrass, so the process works. We need a way to do it much simpler, using less energy (heat & time).
Once you have a sugary water mash, pretty much the same machinery would be used, corn or ethanol.
So, you could convert a corn plant to switchgrass. But, the grain bins would need to be replaced with bulk storage of some sort.
Another thing they are doing with corn ethanol plants - squeezing the corn oil out first, and converting that to biodiesel. There is not much oil in corn, but enough to improve the overall efficiency of a corn plant.
This is all still new technology, they are learning a lot yet. When they started out, the corn ethanol plants were trying to get near 2.5 gallons of ethanol per bu of corn. Now some of the best plants are getting 3.1 gal per bu of corn. Still learning, improving. That .6 gal is a _huge_ improvement in efficiency. Five years from now, they may be looking at 3.5 or more gallons per bu???
This is why some 'reports' about corn ethanol using more energy that it produces come out - they are using old data, bach when 2.3 or 2.4 gallons was average.
New industry, lot of innovation & new ideas and improvements. This is why there are govt grants & subsidies to corn & fiber ethanol - still a new industry, takes a lot of trial & error yet, a lot of improvement along the way. Govt is providing seed money to help it all improve. Right or wrong? Improvement is happening, fuel and better air quality is happening. It's not just rich corn farmers or ADM getting more govt money. It's about trying to make a better fuel source & better air.
Maybe it will all fall on it's face. But I'm glad folks are trying.
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