N.Y. Governor Announces New Ethanol Plant By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 9, 4:14 AM ET
SHELBY, N.Y. - Construction of New York's first dry mill ethanol plant is scheduled to begin this summer, with the state contributing nearly $6 million as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Gov. George Pataki said.
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Western New York Energy's $87.4 million Orleans County facility is expected to produce about 50 million gallons of the fuel each year.
The clean-burning, corn-based product is combined with gasoline to produce a blended, higher octane fuel. The plant will buy an estimated 20 million bushels of corn each year, 6 million from western New York, opening a new market for the state's farms. It will employ 58 people.
The facility "will help us take advantage of this opportunity to reduce our dependence on unstable foreign energy supplies," Pataki said Monday near the 144-acre site of the future plant in Shelby, a town of about 5,400.
Pataki, the first northeast governor to join the Governors Ethanol Coalition, also announced a $20 million program to develop more efficient ethanol technology, known as cellulosic ethanol.
"Ethanol from corn is relatively inefficient. You might have to put a unit of energy in to get two units of energy out — 1.67 out," Pataki said. "But the next generation of technology, instead of just using the sugar in the corn, is going to be able to use the cellulose from the corn, from the corn stalk, from grasses, from trees, from lumber mills. And there the efficiency is as high as 20-to-1."
The facility also will produce two byproducts that will be marketed for sale: carbon dioxide, used for beverage carbonation and freeze drying, and distiller's dried grains, a high-protein livestock feed.
"It's an exciting day for those of us who produce the corn or are in the dairy industry and can take advantage of the .... grain," said New York Farm Bureau President John Lincoln.
The western New York plant, using a process that grinds the entire corn kernel into flour and converts the starch into ethanol via fermentation, is expected to begin production in January 2008.
The average price of unleaded gasoline in New York was $3.12 per gallon Monday, with the national average at $2.90, according to the motorists' club AAA.
The Shelby plant "is a great thing. Ethanol is not going to solve our gas problems, but every little bit helps when the price is so high," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.
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