A family Energy Farm, biodiesel, ethanol and pork chops

Nobody will argue that we need to reduce our dependence on oil, both foreign and domestically produced. Reducing our carbon footprint is also a worthy goal. A few thousand farms like this one could go a long way toward solving both problems.

A lot of ideas have been kited to help with our energy needs. Most are singular ideas like wind power or biodiesel, or Ethanol. No one has mentioned putting all these things together on one farm or a community of neighboring farms.

Putting several technologies and crops together on a single farm could produce a synergy that will make the whole more powerful than the individual elements.


Some sources are saying that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol or biodiesel than is gained from them. Part of the total energy cost of production is transportation, the corn must be hauled to the distillery, the soybeans to the processing plant. This energy cost could be lessened considerably by processing the corn or soybeans at the farm. It is much cheaper, and less energy intensive to transport a gallon of ethanol than it is to transport the corn needed to make it.

Add a methane digester which extracts natural gas from the wastes from both the corn and soybeans and you the extra energy extracted from the crop tips the balance.


Consider this.

Soybeans are pressed to produce oil for biodiesel.
The corn is turned into ethanol.
The pigs are fed the waste mash from the distillation process, and some of the soybean wastes.
All waste from all of the above is fed to a methane digester to produce natural gas.


Look at each of those a little more closely.

Soybeans for oil and pig food.
The soybeans are pressed on the farm to extract the oil, which is sold to a biodiesel producer. This step alone has reduced the total energy cost of the gallon of biodiesel, by reducing the weight of product transported off the farm.

To increase the energy savings and increase profits to the farm, the farm could process it's soybean oil into biodiesel itself.

This would add value to the soybeans and thus profit to the farm's bottom line. The biodiesel could be used on the farm, or sold to a biodiesel distributor or locally to other farmers.

Another benefit of locally processing the soybeans into biodiesel is a reduction in transportation cost, with it's reduction in carbon footprint.

The process of turning soybean oil into biodiesel is relatively simple and can easily be done on a farm.

Make your own biodiesel
Mike Pelly's biodiesel method
The FOOLPROOF way to make biodiesel

The waste from the soybeans is then processed by a methane digester or fed to those pigs.. More on that in a bit.



Corn for ethanol and pig food.
The corn is used to produce ethanol on the farm. Options for it's use include use as a motor fuel on the farm or sale to a gasohol distributer. Producing the alcohol on the farm reduces transportation costs, as it is more fuel efficient to transport the ethanol than it would be to transport the corn it was made from.

Ethanol production is a relatively low tech endeavor. People have been building stills to produce moon shine for millennia.

Introduction to a Farmer's Fuel ... Alcohol
The Revenoor, small scale alcohol production
Animal Feed By-product
Alcohol yield tables, by acre and by source
Alcohol distillation info
Ultra Low Tech alcohol production
News of the weird, a still on Space Station MIR

The pig lot.
When the corn is fermented a very high protein mash is created by the yeast as it turns the sugars in the corn into alcohol. The high protein waste "mash" from the fermentation process is then fed to pigs.

The waste from the soybeans can be fed to these pigs. The bean mash left over after the oil is removed is very high protein and has been used in animal feeds for several decades.

Wiki soybean page,

Some or all of the soybean hulls might also be fed to livestock.
Soybean Hull Feed Ingredient

The pigs lot may be the main cash crop of the farm.

The waste from the pig lot can be used in the methane digester


Methane digester.
A methane digester can turn almost any plant waste into natural gas. The methane (A.K.A. natural gas) from the digester is used for energy around the farm, including providing heat for the distillation of the ethanol, heating and cooking in the farm house, possibly powering the tractor. This energy source would almost certainly need to be used on the farm, as there is seldom any place it could be sold off the farm.

There's another energy and carbon footprint savings here, as the methane from the digester would be used instead of fossil carbon energy.

If a market is found for the methane, it would be profitable to harvest the corn stalks and soybean vines and process them in the digester.

The solid waste from the methane digester is very good fertilizer. This of course would be spread on the fields.

Biogas production Basics
270 cows generating electricity for farm
Anaerobic digestion from WIKI
Anaerobic Manure Digestion Information and Resources
Methane Digester page at Yahoo
DOMZ alternative fuels page

Add Solar
The addition of solar power will provide many more benefits.

Solar electric panels would provide electricity for the pumps and controls of the several processes, and the farm house. Solar heat systems could be used to provide the warm temps needed for the alcohol fermentation process. Solar dryers to dry the mash before it is fed to the pigs. Solar heaters to preheat the mash before it goes into the still. Solar heater for the first stage of the biodiesel process.

This whole farm could be profitable, have zero carbon footprint and reduce the carbon footprint of every vehicle that is powered by it's biodiesel or ethanol.


Other crop options.
Many other crops can be raised to produce Ethanol. I use soybeans and corn in my examples because in most of the temperate zones of the world one field can produce a crop of corn and a crop of soybeans per year. Also the two crops complement each other as soybeans are a nitrogen fixer, and corn uses nitrogen but puts down deep roots that bring nutrients up from deep in the soil.

An experienced farmer could probably pick out other good crop rotations that would be suitable in other climates.

Alcohol yield tables, by acre and by source
A variety of oils can be used to produce biodiesel