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3 Things You Need to Know About Bioproducts

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  To Starch Off When considering bioproducts it can be difficult to think of how plants can be turned into products beyond food. What is really crazy is just how many different products are created from a simple starchy plant we all know and love, corn! Yes, corn has numerous uses that go far beyond feeding cattle or as a side dish for family dinners. There are, of course, processes such as milling or fermentation that the corn must go through in order to be used in these different outlets. From this article you will learn about the milling process, fermentation, and what can be done with the leftover parts (stover) of the corn plant. Milling it over. The first step in making the corn able to be used in bioproducts or as biofuels is milling. The purpose of milling is to remove the starch from the rest of the corn as it is what can be used in the bioproducts. There are 2 main types of milling: dry and wet milling. The vast majority of milling done in the US is dry milling which account
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Wood: the Good, the Bad, and the "Neutral"

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Wood is good! When considering all of the potential uses of wood, from making paper to building your house, wood is a great natural resource. One of the biggest upsides of wood use is the fact that in many cases wood is important in the carbon cycle, and when left to its own devices often lead to a carbon neutral impact on the environment. According to an article by Sustainability Run, during a tree's 20-50 year lifespan they can sequester an average of 13 to 50 kg of carbon each year. This equates to large amounts of carbon removed from the environment when thinking of entire forests doing this. The tree then holds this carbon for years until it is either decomposed or used as fuel. Wood is also much cheaper to use in building vs. cement as a 2x4 from home depot costs $7.35 right now, which equates to about 82 cents per pound, whereas cement goes for 2-3$ per pound. Another really nice thing about wood is that throughout the whole process from removal to manufacturing of the lumbe
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Stuff has to come from somewhere, even if it's biorenewable

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  Wood You Consider?  When considering what wood is used for, many people often think of the obvious: lumber, paper, and furniture. While those things are very important and have a large impact on wood use there are countless other ways in which wood is used in our everyday lives. The issue lies in the fact that wood takes a long time to grow, and at the rate we consume it by various means. But just how are we using wood, and what portions of wood are used for different aspects? Furthermore, just how sustainable are our current wood production practices? Woodn’t You Like to Know Products made from wood are all around us all the time: The frame for your house, your notebook, mulch or wood chips, fuel for a late night bonfire, etc. but where is it all coming from and how are we able to continually get more when considering the length of time it takes for a tree to grow? Well currently around 33% of US land is covered by forests which equates to around 751 million acres (lesson 9). Howe
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Consumption, resources, and the environment: What you need to know.

  Consumption, resources, and the environment: What you need to know. Just how “renewable” is renewable energy? Using fewer fossil fuels and moving to cleaner, more “green” energy sources is a good idea, right? Well on the outside it does seem great it just is not that simple, and though it is definitely the right idea this post should help to inform you of potential drawbacks to these forms of energy that may not be intuitively clear. When thinking about renewable energy one of the first things that comes to mind is solar panels. I mean there is plenty of solar energy to go around, so why don’t we have more solar panels? This is when utilizing life cycle assessments can really come in handy as an LCA determines the “cradle to grave” impacts of a product, in other words they quantify the impacts a product has on the environment from the extraction of the materials to create the product all the way to the products disposal or end of life. Although currently according to an LCA done in S
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