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Watermelon Juice Makes Great Biofuel
Mike writes "Watermelons are more than just a tasty summer snack — researchers at the USDA have determined that the fruit constitutes a promising and economically viable source of biofuel. It turns out that the relatively high concentration of directly fermentable sugars in watermelon juice can be easily converted into ethanol. Rather than grow fields of the fruit for the purpose, the report suggests that farmers capitalize on the 20% of each annual watermelon crop that is left in the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen."
As a homebrewer, does this actually taste decent?
Any glucose/sugar product can be distilled this way.
Next up: Candy Canes make Great Biofuel
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The real news is that 20% of the watermelon crop is currently thrown out due to cosmetic issues. I don't understand why shape and surface issues would disqualify the fruit from use in processed foods. Such as watermelon juice, fruit salads, sweeteners, etc. If true (and the article did not provide citations, this represents a stunning waste.
Near as I could tell, the only people who claimed that corn ethanol was actually a good idea were corn growers and any politicians who needed votes out in corn country.(and anybody involved with whiskey, of course; but they aren't wrong)
TFA sticks with the "economically viable" phrase and doesn't offer any numbers or details.
Plenty of things, including oil sands, arctic natural gas, and burning baby seal blubber can be "economically viable" in certain situations, but only when more traditional sources of crude oil reach a certain market price. This article doesn't even conjecture about when and where watermelon fuel could be "economically viable" compared to crude oil, and comparison with crude oil marks the only concrete method of making the comparison.
Naturally, using watermelons you've already grown for fuel might be viable at a pretty low return, compared with letting them rot, but the article doesn't prove that, either.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, ANY food source used as a bio-fuel is a terrible idea. Using food sources for bio-fuels has resulted in people STARVING to death in developing nations. Why can't these intelligent scientists see this? Even if it's only for spoils of watermelon crops, the fine line between selling the entire source for fuel vs food will become invisible - just as it happened for corn and wheat.
It took a global economic meltdown to correct food prices to help reset this stupidity. But it seems these morons (lets call a spade a spade) forgot this fact. All it takes is for watermelons to get expensive, and in poorer countries, you'll have the farmers selling their entire crops to bio-fuel companies.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
Good cropland is scarce enough as it is. Urban areas are constantly expanding and turning cropland into cityscape. It doesn't make much sense to hasten this trend by effectively converting space for growing food into space for fueling our vehicles.
I swear, the only reason we continue to see these ridiculous schemes is because the fuel companies don't want to see everything go electric. It won't be long before battery technology catches up and allows us to drive a reasonable distance on a charge. (Or we could just take advantage of the various swappable battery technologies that have already been developed for cars.)
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Have you ever held a fully grown watermelon?
How about picked and loaded a truckfull of it, taken it to the market and then be told that you should either return a part of it cause they are bellow the buy-off quality or that you will be paid less for those watermelons, again on account of lower quality?
It is WAY cheaper to do quality control before PICKING, and just grow more to cover for the statistics.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Exactly. Iowa's early primary ensures that any canidate trying to raise more money has to take the pledge to support ethanol as a biofuel. If they point out how wastefull and pointless it's been, they'll have a weak showing there, and their campaign contributions will take a hit. Plus no congressman with eyes on the presidency would be willing to vote against corn for the same reasons.
Ethanol subsidies have been a huge waste, the money is all going to ADM, which is the last company we should be giving it to.
That wiki page also has some interesting stats on the taxes. "every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30." And we're STILL dependant on oil. It's not even that they take corporate welfare, I'd be mad enough just based off how lousy an investment that is.
The United States is, by far, the largest producer of corn in the world. Corn is grown on over 400,000 U.S. farms. In 2000, the U.S. produced almost ten billion bushels of the world's total 23 billion bushel crop. Corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country. Corn grown for silage accounts for about two percent of the total harvested cropland or about 6 million acres. The amount of land dedicated to corn silage production varies based on growing conditions. In years that produce weather unfavorable to high corn grain yields, corn can be "salvaged" by harvesting the entire plant as silage. According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production. The crop is fed as ground grain, silage, high-moisture, and high-oil corn. About 12% of the U.S. corn crop ends up in foods that are either consumed directly (e.g. corn chips) or indirectly (e.g. high fructose corn syrup). It also has a wide array of industrial uses including ethanol, a popular oxygenate in cleaner burning auto fuels.
http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html
Growing food for producing fuel is just mad. mad. mad.