I'm not sure if this artcle has already been shared on this board but I thought that it was a nice summary of events from last year.
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10/18/2006 8:14:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Proposed ethanol plant gaining ground
BY KATHY CRAIGO
Staff Reporter
GRIMES - Tom Bowers, CEO of Colusa Biomass Energy Corporation [CLME], has worked diligently for nearly five years to bring an ethanol plant to Colusa County. Bowers estimated that the company would employ 13 employees during the engineering stage and that staff would grow to 30 or 40 employees not including gathering staff.
"We estimate an annual payroll of $3.5 million when in full-swing," he said.
Last week, Bowers began to see positive results of his efforts. Thirty acres of rice straw near Grimes was harvested and prepared for production in the plant. Bowers now anticipates being in production here by the fourth quarter of 2007. Bowers has worked to bring this business to the county, and has now accomplished the funding for the project. He has contracted for the needed rice straw and has acquired enough with the Grimes site and two other in-county sites to feed the first year's ethanol production.
Earlier this year, Bowers shared with the Colusa County Sun-Herald a letter of intent for the project signed by Colusa Industrial Properties, Inc. [CIP] C.E.O. Ed Hulbert, which stated CIP would provide an industrial zoned 15-acre site for a renewable energy bio-refinery ethanol facility in Colusa.
The letter of intent from CIP also indicated that CIP would negotiate a 15-acre long-term land lease for the construction of the facility. The initial term is 30 years plus options. CIP would also provide additional option acres should they be needed for expansion. CIP would provide water and wastewater service. CIP would help to facilitate engineering, permitting and disposal of process wastewater. CIP has adequate capacity under its existing permit with Regional Water Quality Control Board. CIP would also provide and commit its industrial construction experience to the project, and it would provide rice straw that it controls to the project.
At that time, Bowers said he was confident the project is moving forward. In addition to the CIP letter of intent, he also shared that he had struck a verbal agreement for a 30-acre parcel in the Grimes area to be used as satellite storage of prepared straw. The verbal agreement came to fruition with last week's harvest.
Rick Nannen of Grimes, is on board as the director of field gathering and biomass preparation.
Bowers told the Sun-Herald that Nannen designed and executed the harvest which is a method that is being used for the first time worldwide.
Bowers owns the patent on the process, and said he is willing to bring that
process to Colusa County. He said he doesn't need to finance himself on the
backs of the local farmers, and that is not his intent. Bowers has financed the project using his own capital and had also received backing from England.
His next step will be to apply for the plant's air quality permit, and building permit, and to appear before the Colusa County Board of Supervisors for final approval to open the plant here. He said he anticipates having all of the applications to the county by mid-November. If the Board denies his request to move forward in bringing the business to the county, he said he would accept a written invitation to build the plant at an alternative site out of county.
Regardless of if the plant moves forward in Colusa County, Bowers said he is now confident that the plant will not only be built, but that it will be duplicated in multiple sites. But, Bowers continues to see Colusa County as the ideal location for the facility.
Although the company has had several offers from surrounding states hoping to entice the project out of the county, Bowers said he'd rather see it happen here.
"It just makes sense to be in the middle of the material supply as biomass residues cannot be hauled very far economically," he said.
The product can be derived from any number of cereal grasses, as well as
wood chips, which become available during the normal maintenance process of national forests.
Bowers estimates that his company could support five storage facilities of rice straw drawing on product from the major rice producing counties of Colusa, Glenn, Sutter, Butte and Yolo.
If the facility were built in Colusa County, it would be the first of its type in the world. Bowers said the county has the potential to be the national leader using post-harvest residues to convert to transport fuels.
Bowers is not a farmer, he is a professional manager, and he said he hopes
that he and the producers can come to an understanding, which would benefit each of them.
He added that he feels very blessed to have the expertise and experience of Nannen working on this project.
"I just feel extraordinarily blessed to have him on the team," he said.
Bowers explained the method of making ethanol as being similar to the method used for making beer, wine and spirits. He described the facility as a giant brewery type operation.
While there has been some inquiry into if the plant would generate an odor, Bowers said the only smell connected to the facility would be that of a pleasant bakery aroma similar to the Sierra Nevada brewery in the city of Chico.
He said he envisions this area as being the ethanol blending fuel for transportation gasoline supplier from Stockton to Seattle as this is the logical distribution area for ethanol refined in Colusa County.
Ethanol is a clean-burning, renewable fuel made from crops such as corn and
rice straw. Bowers said there is an abundance of crops in the area, and there is an abundance of waste [harvest residues] as well which could supply the input stream for making ethanol.
When the rice farmer grows an acre of rice he potentially receives about 8,000 pounds of rice and 5,000 pounds of rice straw. Most of the rice straw has no commercial value. Worthless waste rice straw is not the case with CLME.
"We have the technology to make an acre of waste rice straw into 300 plus gallons of fuel ethanol and 900 pounds of high quality silica for industry. The CLME could generate more than $890 of revenue from an acre of waste rice straw," said Bowers.
These post harvest residues will then be processed at a $35 million dollar bio-refinery located in the region.
The company's mission statement states that Colusa Biomass Energy
Corporation is dedicated to converting biomass to energy for the
transportation sector of the U.S. economy. By using waste biomass as the
source for conversion to energy, the population benefits two fold immediately: The ethanol distilled from the waste biomass causes the unleaded gasoline to burn cleaner with less tailpipe emissions; and as the waste biomass does not break down releasing into the atmosphere methane and carbon dioxide which are key components of the greenhouse gases. Colusa Biomass will continue to pioneer uses of waste biomass to the benefit of its shareholders and the population in general.
Bowers explained that there are 4,400 ethanol refineries worldwide, and 160
in the United States that are new or being expanded which will double the
production capacity from 3.9 million gallons to 8 billion gallons.
"California is the largest importer of ethanol of all of the states," said
Bowers, adding that the state imports 950 million gallons annually. "Actually
this is a shortfall. California could consume twice that amount."
He said the plant is a clean process, and just as it only emits a pleasant
bakery-like scent, it is also a safe process.
While the facility would produce about 700,000 gallons of ethanol per month, it would never be stored on site for more than 24 hours. It would be shipped the minute it is denatured, Bowers said.
"There has never been an ethanol plant explode in the United States," he
said. "Ethanol plants do not blow up."
Research indicates that ethanol has the potential of significantly reducing
the United States dependence on foreign oil. From every barrel of oil [42.2
gallons] approximately 20 gallons of gasoline are produced. Modern automobiles can burn a mixture of gasoline ranging between 12 percent and 85 percent ethanol combined with 88 percent gasoline and 15 percent gasoline, E-12 and E-85.
Currently, there are approximately 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol produced in
the United States a year. More than 99 percent of this ethanol uses corn grain as
the starting material.
Colusa Biomass Energy Corporation has a U.S. patent that can use cellulose
[woody portion of all plant life] to produce ethanol; the starting materials for the CLME process is a rice straw and rice hull, corn stover and cobs, wheat straw and husks, wood chips from forest slashing, and sawdust from saw mills.
Bowers stated that CLME would initially build a 150,000-ton/year-rice straw
plant near Colusa. This plant will produce 9 million gallons of fuel ethanol, 12,000 tons of silica products, Distillers Dried Grain Solubles [solids] [DDGS], commercial carbon dioxide, and a high-energy lignin fuel that will be used internally in the plant to reduce the cost of natural gas.
AI
