ETHANOL PLANT COMES TOGETHER; OFFICIAL SAYS BYPRODUCT USE WILL MAKE FACILITY NEAR FULTON ONE OF CLEANEST IN NATION.(Local)
From: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) Date: October 25, 2007
Byline: Catie O'Toole Staff writer; Staff writer Tim Knauss contributed to this report.
Ethanol production at the former Miller brewery near Fulton could begin early next year, said Northeast Biofuels Manager Brian Roach.
"Progress continues at a rapid pace," Roach said Wednesday afternoon. "I'm excited to see the last of the few remaining components being delivered."
The most visible sign of progress is the arrival of several 140-ton tanks that will store carbon dioxide, a byproduct of the ethanol production process.
Two weeks ago, two of the tanks arrived on a barge from the Honeywell chemical plant in Hopewell, Va., to Indian Point Landing in Fulton, said Dan Clark, project manager for Lockwood Brothers which coordinated the transport. They then headed to the ethanol plant. On Monday, two more tanks arrived. Clark said it took seven days to get from Virginia to Fulton.
Police spent about three hours Wednesday escorting one of the 143-foot-long tanks from Indian Point Landing, south onto Route 481 and then onto Route 57 just south of the city to the ethanol plant on Owens Road.
The fourth and final tank is expected to travel the same route starting around 9:30 or 10 a.m. today.
Stewart Hancock, speaking for Northeast Biofuels, said the ethanol plant will produce carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. About 325,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be captured and sold to Linde Gas, formerly BOC Gases.
Linde Gas will clean the gas, compress it, liquefy it, transport it to distribution sites in the Northeast and sell it to clients for carbonating beverages and flash-freezing foods, Roach said.
"From an environmental standpoint, this will be one of the cleanest and carbon-free ethanol plants in the nation," Hancock said.
The Northeast Biofuels plant will make 114 million gallons a year of ethanol from corn.
"It will have a direct economic impact of about $500 million," Hancock said. "That's the operation of the plant, purchasing of materials."
During the last several months, Northeast Biofuels has hired a management staff of two Onondaga County residents and seven Oswego County residents, said Roach, of Mexico.
About 500 construction workers, including plumbers, steamfitters, electricians, carpenters, operating engineers and other trades, are working on the project now, Hancock said.
Now that the storage tanks have arrived, Roach said the project is inching toward ethanol production.
"This means we get closer every day to bringing the first 114 million-gallon ethanol plant online in Central New York," Roach said.
Meanwhile, Northeast Biofuels is making plans with another company to establish a second, smaller fuel-making operation on site. GS Fulton Biodiesel hopes to produce up to 8 million gallons a year of biodiesel from corn oil to be extracted after Northeast Biofuels' ethanol fermentation is complete.
Roach met Tuesday with Tom Scozzafava, president of GS AgriFuels, the majority owner of GS Fulton Biodiesel, to work out details of the arrangement. The plan is to have GS Fulton Biodiesel use centrifuges to extract corn oil from Northeast Biofuels' left-over grains before the grains are sold as animal feed.
GS Fulton Biodiesel has an agreement to pay Northeast Biofuels for the corn oil, then make it into biodiesel to sell on the market, Roach and Scozzafava said. Soybeans or animal fat could be brought in to make an additional 2 million gallons a year of biodiesel.
Scozzafava said he hopes to have some of the corn oil extraction equipment ready to begin operation as early as April. The proposed biodiesel operation has evolved since it was proposed two years ago as a soybean-based process segregated from the ethanol facility.
Staff writer Tim Knauss contributed to this report. Catie O'Toole can be reached at cotoole@syracuse.com or 592-7140.
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