Maybe not such a great idea after all?

Feeding ethanol waste to cows 18

Perhaps the most persistent debate around corn ethanol involves its "net energy balance" -- that is, whether it consumes more energy in production than it delivers as a fuel. Even the studies that credit the fuel with a robust energy balance, like this one from the USDA, acknowledge that it's pretty much a wash unless you account for the "co-product" of the ethanol-making process.

The ethanol process consumes only the starch component of corn, leaving behind nearly a third of the input corn as a high-protein, high-fat substance called "distillers grains." According to ethanol boosters, this stuff makes a high-quality feed for confined animals. And indeed, as ethanol production has surged along with corn prices over the last year, CAFO operators are turning more and more to ethanol waste as feed, mainly for cows, but for poultry and hogs as well.

I've often wondered this: If whole corn is bad for cows -- evidently corn-heavy diets ruin cows' livers -- might fragmented corn that's been through an industrial process be even worse? Turns out the answer may be "yes."

Remember E. coli 0157, the deadly strain that poisoned several people last year who had been exposed to it through tainted spinach? Barely a week goes by these days without a massive recall of ground beef tainted with 0157. According to a new study by Kansas State University researchers, cows whose rations include distillers grains harbor E. coli 0157 at about twice the rate of cows who don't.

Update [2007-12-4 16:36:43 by Tom Philpott]:USA Today just came out with a startling article on recalls of E. coli-tainted meat. There have already been 54 recalls this year (one a week!), vs. 34 in 2006. And in those recalls, the USDA only managed to recover 44 percent of the tainted meat. Worse, of the five recalls that involved consumers getting sick, the agency got back just 20 percent of the meat. Hat tip to Bonnie of Ethicurean.

Correction: The USA Today piece refers to recalls of meat generally, not just for beef infected with E. coli 0157. There have been 20 E. coli 0157 cases this year, a significant rise over recent years.

Okay, back to distillers grains. The researchers haven't figured out why distillers grains boost E. coli 0157 rates. As the press release puts it, it might be "something that changes in the animals' hindgut as a result of feeding distiller's grains, or maybe the byproduct provides a nutrient for the bacteria."

Recall that E. coli 0157 itself is a new phenomenon; it was virtually unknown before the 1970s, when livestock producers moved cows from a primarily grass-based diet to a corn-dominated one.

Evidently, corn-heavy diets change the pH of cows' guts, resulting in a much more acidic intestinal environment. This effect not only destroys cows' livers, but also allows ever more virulent strains of E. coli, such as 0157, to thrive.

For boosters of corn-based ethanol as a "green fuel," the whole co-product issue must be a troublesome one. The fuel's only claim to a positive energy balance rests on use of distillers grains -- and the only use we've found for it is for feedlot meat production: surely one of the ungreenest industries known to man.

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. mrfrazzlebottom Posted 5:08 pm
    04 Dec 2007

    Corn ruins cows stomaches andCorn ruins cows stomaches, causing inflamations and increased chances of infections, and feedlots exacerbate the problems, and this is why they need so much antibiotics.
    But overall feedlot animal feeds tend to be the cheapest possible sources that get the animals the heaviest the soonest -- as they are simply money sources for the meat industry.
    Feeding cows their own meat by-products not used elsewhere, such as brains and spinal columns, contribute to mad cow disease.
    Feeding cows sawdust is also something that has been reported. Even grain fed to cows is simply to fatten then quicker.
    Cows have evolved to eat grasses. One cannot feed them stuff they were not "made" to digest and not expect problems.
    Apparently, it is simply cheaper to feed cows corn and anything else to produce a pound of "meat" than it is to grass feed them. So, therefore, until more people than not use their market power and insist on and buy grass feed beef, this will not end. Ever.
    Better yet, eat less beef!

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  2. John former Marine Posted 10:51 pm
    04 Dec 2007

    What?Uhhh....you mean, meat eating is bad for the environment?  Why hasn't somebody told me about this?  Why aren't Hillary and Barach fighting over who eats less meat rather than who takes more money from the coal and oil industries?  I think the answer is obvious...eating meat is actually good for the environment.  And not only is burning fossil fuel also good, it also makes God happy.  Just like animal sacrifices, he loves the sweet incense smell of burned coal as it rises to the heavens.
    No...people will not change their habits until they change their beliefs.

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  3. caniscandida Posted 11:17 pm
    04 Dec 2007

    changing our beliefsRight, JohnFM.  So long as we believe that animals such as cattle are no more than resources and food-producing machines, and so long as we believe it is a matter of little ethical importance how they are raised, and of little urgency that we be permitted to observe the process, then of course they will be submitted to such abuse as being fed food that puts them in pain for all their short lives.  There should be nothing at all surprising about this.
    But new beliefs, requiring us to consider this kind of abusive treatment to be sinful, would certainly be good for the animals, and morally very good for us.

    Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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  4. Karen Lee Orr Posted 12:46 am
    05 Dec 2007

    Cows fed chicken manureThe January 2007 report below is by December McSherry, Florida farmer, Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club Agriculture Chairwoman and National Sierra Club Agriculture Committee member.
    More information on this topic can be read here:

    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/1/8320/72156
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    The ethanol craze has doubled grain prices at local country elevators.

    Corn has hit decade highs - around $4 a bushel.
    High grain prices also mean increased feeding costs, making it more

    expensive to fatten livestock like cattle.
    The livestock industry, strained by rising grain prices, has turned to the

    poultry industry for a new feed source -  chicken manure.
    Cows may be wintered on a mixture of 89% chicken manure and 20% ground corn
    Guidelines for Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle

    http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/ ...
    Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), the world's largest poultry producer,

    gave an Environmental Award at their Annual Shareholders Meeting to

    Dennis and Ginger Stoneburner who raise 150,000 chickens at their Glen Hill

    Farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and feed 200 tons of chicken manure

    to their 300 head of stocker cattle. They mix the remaining 630 tons of manure

    with corn and sell it as bagged cattle feed.
    Poultry farms in Arkansas produce 5,100 tons of manure each day.
    Arkansas cattle producers looking at emergency feed options - News - August 2006

    http://www.uaex.edu/news/august2006/0825litr.htm
    Dr. Stephen Sundlof, FDA's director for the Center for Veterinary Medicine,

    acknowledges, "adding chicken litter to cattle feed is one of the primary

    methods of waste disposal for the chicken growers" in the Southeast.
    FDA  is still struggling  to safeguard us against mad cow disease.
    Just thought you would like to know about the symbiotic relationship

    within Industrial Agriculture.  And disclose a cow's diet.

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  5. Karen Lee Orr Posted 1:21 am
    05 Dec 2007

    The USA: Ethanol Supermarket to the World?Ray Wallace touches upon the topic of a cows diet in U.S. feedlots in "The USA: Ethanol Supermarket to the World?"
    See the April 2007 issue of Energy Tribune Magazine, Houston, Texas:

                  http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=439

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  6. Karen Lee Orr Posted 1:35 am
    05 Dec 2007

    More on a cows dietfrom Ray Wallace
         "I'm a big believer in ethanol.... We're going to run into a constraint

           pretty soon, though. It turns out corn is needed for more than just

           ethanol. You got to feed your cows and feed your hogs."
             -- From President George W. Bush's January 30, 2007 speech in

                 East Peoria, Illinois, as posted at this White House site:

                 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070130- ....

    - - -
         Cows are ruminants, they are meant to eat grass....
         Feeding corn and soy to cows results in a host of problems resulting in

    the need to add daily doses of antibiotics to the feed to treat some of the

    illnesses that occur. Things like liver abscesses are a common occurrence

    among feedlot cattle....
         Aside from inappropriate grain and soy, feedlot cows are also fed any

    or all of the following (all allowed by the FDA) feather meal, pig and fish

    protein, chicken manure and pesticide-laden citrus peels. To protect against

    the spread of mad cow disease, since 1997 the Animal Feed Rule prohibits

    adding most mammalian materials to ruminant feed. However, chicken litter

    and restaurant scraps (which both can contain bovine proteins) are still

    allowed and many calves are still fed bovine blood meal.
         While they are being fed this concoction, designed to get them as heavy

    as possible as quickly as possible, they are standing thigh deep in their

    own waste creating an even bigger health problem  After slaughter, these

    cows are then hosed off using high pressure sprays, which, rather than clean

    the manure off the meat, imbeds it deeper into the muscle.
         And that is just cows.  Pigs and chickens are treated even worse....
              -- From "You are what you eat, eats," by Tanya Carwyn, at this

                  Jan. 18, 2007 site of The Cherry Creek News and Central Denver

                  Dispatch, Denver, Colorado:

                  http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/970/2/...

    - - -
         Broiler litter contains bedding material, manure, wasted feed and

         feathers....
         Adding broiler litter to beef cattle rations at a level of 20% or

         higher ... generally meets the animal's needs for crude protein,

         calcium, and phosphorus....
         Cows may be wintered on a mixture of 89% litter.... Litter alone would

         meet the protein and energy needs of wintering cows if they ate enough

         of it....
         If cows are to be fed litter during lactation, start cows on litter

         rations before calving to ensure that intake is sufficient to meet

         nutritional requirements. Some animals may refuse to eat an adequate

         amount of broiler litter rations....
              -- From "Guidelines for Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle" at

                  this North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service site:

    http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/ ....
    - - -
         The Delmarva Peninsula, comprising Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia on

    the Chesapeake Bay, an area also known as the Eastern Shore, produces a

    million tons of poultry manure a year, according to The Washington Post,

    Oct. 3, 1997. This manure is called "litter" because it is the main thing

    the birds bed in from the time they are born-a mixture of fecal droppings,

    antibiotic residues, heavy metals, cysts, larvae, decaying carcasses,

    sawdust, ground up chicken heads, USDA condemned slaughter products, and the

    mammalian nervous system tissue responsible for Mad Cow Disease. Poultry

    litter is used as crop fertilizer and is fed to cattle....
              -- From "Md Gov. Glendening Goes Almost Vegetarian" at this summer

                  2001 site of United Poultry Concerns:

                  http://www.upc-online.org/summer2001/glendening_semi_veg. ....

    - - -
         "The litter feeding issue has been in the hands of the FDA since 2002,

           but as of yet, they haven't called a halt to its use as cattle feed.

           It's currently legal to feed litter to beef cattle...."
              -- Robert Seay, Benton County staff chair for the University of

                  Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, as quoted at "In the

                  News - August 2006: Arkansas cattle producers looking at

                  emergency feed options," at this Aug. 25, 2006 site of the

                  University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative

                  Extension Service:

                  http://www.uaex.edu/news/august2006/0825litr.htm
    - - -

    With many thanks to December McSherry, cattle rancher, farmer, Florida

    Sierra Club Agriculture Committee chair, and National Sierra Club

    Agriculture Committee member.
    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/1/8320/72156/#7

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  7. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 2:41 am
    05 Dec 2007

    That study at MITThe researcher expressed her opinion that corn ethanol is a stepping stone to cellulosic. That was just her opinion. The news grabbed onto her comment as if it were a conclusion drawn from her research. It wasn't. It was just an off the cuff comment. But that is good because it shows that she has no hidden bias against corn ethanol.
    But here are some results of her study:
    "It is not clear, nor has it been demonstrated, that co-products produced from ethanol production are a replacement product"
    "Based on her "most likely" outcomes, she concluded that traveling a kilometer using ethanol does indeed consume more energy than traveling the same distance using gasoline"
    http://lfee.mit.edu/public/Groode_Current%20Corn%20Ethano ...
    http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/ethanol.html



    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  8. GreyFlcn Posted 3:10 am
    05 Dec 2007

    Groode"This research was supported by British Petroleum America."

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  9. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 3:55 am
    05 Dec 2007

    GreyHer positive comments about corn ethanol suggest a lack of bias against it (maybe a bias for it). Although one must always take funding into account.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  10. RSK Posted 4:20 am
    05 Dec 2007

    Improved efficiency and improved co-productsThe ongoing debate about ethanol's energy balance will soon take an interesting turn. Innovations such as fractionation and polymeric membrane technology will vastly improve the energy balance of corn-to-ethanol plants while also improving and diversifying the co-products. Unfortunately, the gold rush mentality that pervaded the ethanol industry these past few years caused many innovative technologies to be shelved in lieu of just getting the plant up and running. Now it's about building smart - before it was about building fast.
    Dry mill fractionation separates each corn kernel into bran, germ and starch before the starch component is fermented. This process optimizes the value of each corn kernel. The Buhler Group(http://www.buhlergroup.com) is one company that offers fractionation technology to the ethanol industry. Fractionation increases the efficiency of ethanol production and energy use by 20%. The front-end fractionation process can be integrated with a biomass boiler, which allows the ethanol plant to produce over 90% of the energy the ethanol plant requires using the less valuable (carbon neutral) corn kernel fractions as fuel.
    Ethanol plants using front-end fractionation will not produce the medium-protein, high-fat distillers grains produced in most ethanol plants today. Instead, the fractionation process will allow ethanol plants to produce a low-fat, low-fiber, high-protein animal feed, with a similar nutritive value as soy meal. Additionally, the separated germ can be further processed into substantial quantities of food-grade corn oil.  
    If fractionation is coupled with polymeric membrane technology the increased efficiencies are compounded. Vaperma (http://www.vaperma.com) has developed membrane technology that replaces the rectifier and molecular sieve used in conventional ethanol plants. This translates into additional energy savings, as high as 40%.
    Both Buhler's fractionation technology and Vaperma's membrane technology have been demonstrated industrially and will be available soon on a commercial basis.

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  11. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 5:07 am
    05 Dec 2007

    RSKIt goes without saying that the profit motive will find more efficient ways to ferment corn into ethanol, within limits. Because you can only use the corn kernel for this process and the fact that corn must be grown on land and land is constrained, you quickly hit a limit on how efficiently and cheaply you can extract ethanol from a kernel using microbes to digest the sugars in it.
    That is why most are pinning their hopes on cellulosic. Nobody, sees corn ethanol as a long term solution. Legislation to limit its production is inevitable. When our tariffs against cane ethanol drop, corn ethanol will become history, along with the Cerrado and the Amazon.
    http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/ethanolenergy.jpg
    Pointing to articles that highlight ideas to make a dead end fuel more cost effective for its producers does not fix the fatal flaws associated with this fuel stock. Primarily leakage:
    http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/crayon2.JPG
     

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

    Permalink

  12. GreyFlcn Posted 7:22 am
    05 Dec 2007

    Nifty ChartNifty chart, I've been trying to find something similar which I think Wang made, which compares switchgrass, sugarcane, eucalyptus, etc etc.
    And yes, that Switchgrass is about half as good as Sugarcane.  (Incidentally, Temperate climates get about half as much sunlight as Tropical climates)
    However one thing about the heading.
    It says "Net energy

    What the graph is really showing is EROEI.
    It's not really "Net" unless you subtract the 1 unit of energy investment.
    _
    Another nifty chart to consider:

    The system efficiency of various approaches

    http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosics.png

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  13. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 8:23 am
    05 Dec 2007

    I don't quite understand that chartWhat is it trying to say (too lazy to dig up PDF)?

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

    Permalink

  14. Greta Posted 10:01 am
    05 Dec 2007

    Bingo, John Former Marine!No, no, John Former Marine, is right (even if in satire): meat consumption is good for the environment.
    Stay with me here.  The worst worldwide environmental problem is OVERPOPULATION.
    As long as you carnivores continue to eat this vile stuff, which apparently is becoming even more vile, you will start to drop like flies.  
    Then, the animals can finally get a good night's sleep, there will be fewer of you to desecrate the earth, and a balance can be restored for us veg*ns.  :-)
    Bon appetite!!



    www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org

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  15. Karen Lee Orr Posted 11:47 pm
    05 Dec 2007

    CAFO manure ethanol plant explodes, shuts,and files for bankruptcy.
    E3 Biofuels-Mead LLC, a startup that used cow manure to power its ethanol plant in Nebraska, filed for bankruptcy in Kansas after a boiler explosion.
    The company's plant in Mead, Nebraska suffered an explosion in a boiler earlier in the year.
    E3  made ethanol from corn and fed the crop "waste" to 28,000 cows on site. Then it made a biogas from the manure, of which it had large supply.
    E3 Plant Craps Out

    http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/e3-plant-craps-out ...
    The Motley Fools say "Ethanol is Running Out of Gas."  Read the business article here:

    http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2007/12/05 ...

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  16. amc89 Posted 1:44 am
    06 Dec 2007

    It gets worse-arsenicWhat we feed to farm animals is pretty horrific. I learned a few months ago about the practice of putting in arsenic in chicken feed. Yes, ARSENSIC!
    http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/arsenic060405. ...
    The bottom line is we all need to eat less animal products, or better yet go veggie, and the animals we do raise for food must be fed diets that are the most natural to them.  Which is grass in the case of cows.

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  17. nycowboy Posted 1:51 am
    06 Dec 2007

    Feed RationsThe article didn't say what percent of feed ration was distiller grains. I don't think there is much evidence at a 5% or less distilled grain ration would have much of an effect on a cow's health.
    Some farmers are using up 10% or more. That's more troublesome, as distilled grain at those levels has well documented problems, much like feeding too much corn (or particularly alfalpha) to cows does.
    There are many farms that have been using small rations of distiller's grain, near breweries for decades without problems. It's likely that some people are overusing distiller's grain because it so available and so cheap (brewers will pay you take it away rather then have to landfill it).

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  18. green8659 Posted 2:13 pm
    27 Aug 2008

    ummm GretaLast I checked we were omnivores not herbivores.  Eating meat is natural and people who eat meat are statistically healthier than people who don't this is because of the difficulty in getting the protein provided in meat from vegetables alone.  I bet you will die before I do have fun starving yourself by keeping your body from getting what it needs.

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