Liberty - Thanks for the explanation of DDG's. The process you described is the same as in brewing beer, except for distilling of course. In brewing, the DDG's are called "spent grains" and they're good for compost, animal feed, etc. The liquid you describe would be the spent "sparge water" left after rinsing sugars out. I've never heard of a use for it - but if you had enough of it, I guess it could be animal feed. Makes sense.

I did some reading on "cellulosic ethanol" - which would be a big breakthrough if they could make it economically viable. I think that breakthrough is going to be necessary for ethanol to be practical. Fermenting food just isn't going to do it.

They're working on the cellulose problem, and maybe they'll solve it - who knows? I still say if they do they've solved "world hunger" as a side effect - so that's pretty significant.

Lots of the claims about "cellulosic ethanol" seem pretty phony though - they're claiming the process produces NO greenhouse gases because the growing plants absorb as much CO2 as is produced in making and burning ethanol. Hmmm - I guess they've never been around a fermenter?

"Cellulosic ethanol" is sounding like the proverbial "Mexican cat ranch" for producing fur coats. Next door they build a rat farm, and the cats eat the rats and the rats eat the skinned cats - and the whole thing is self-sustaining. Somehow I think there's some natural laws being violated in that proposition.

We'll see.