We have all heard of ethanol. And we have all heard of how ethanol is a good alternative to straight fuel. What if you can’t get ethanol in your community? There are many who still can’t. One way around this, especially if you own a farm, is to purchase your own ethanol production equipment. Unlike an ethanol company which needs large scale refining processes, it is possible to find home-based products that will give you as little as 10,000 gallons of ethanol per year.

The Farmer Gains Double Income

With ethanol being mainly from corn feedstock in the US market, farmers selling corn can make a basic living off of the sale of their crop to an ethanol company and refinery. Yet another way they can make money is to join with other farmers in an energy farm cooperative where they share the cost of production and sales. The cooperative would purchase ethanol production equipment for a small local plant and sell the fuel directly to consumers or other farms.

Meanwhile, the farms involved in the cooperative would also see a fuel cost savings with the use of ethanol in their own base machinery. While it is estimated that you would need about 600 acres minimum for a productive “Energy Farm”, it would not be hard to combine small groups of farms to maintain that limit. It is very possible, as seen with any smaller ethanol producer that with enough farms in the cooperative, you could find yourself not only a farmer, but a business partner in a new company.

What Types of Ethanol Production Equipment Are There?

Most small home-based ethanol production equipment is in the form of distilleries. This equipment requires amounts of corn to be cooked down to the starch and then separated in vats. This would be useable by households simply wanting to sustain or augment their own fuel use. There have been articles written about using ethanol for small engines and converting cars and small trucks to biofuel use.

Other types of ethanol production equipment are of the larger scale that are put in at refineries across the country. Huge tanks used to store the fuel are placing metal fabricators into overdrive in states like Texas where new ethanol production equipment is being ordered for refineries being built.

Firms once solely involved in selling farm equipment are now marketing their wares as ethanol production equipment to new cooperatives and those involved in raising feedstock for ethanol production. While no new manufacturing technology has come because of the ethanol boon, many types of equipment and tools are finding new uses as ethanol production equipment in this new marketplace.