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Company
Name
Ecofin LLC
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Company Web
Site
http://www.alltech.com/
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Headquarters
Nicholasville, KY
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Latest
News
The U.S. Department of Energy yesterday selected a Nicholasville, Ky., company to build a Washington County refinery that would produce ethanol from corncobs, wood chips and other plant mass.
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Ecofin LLC, a subsidiary of Alltech Inc., plans to invest $10 million and spend $30 million from a federal grant to retrofit a plant near Springfield. Production is expected to start by fall 2009.
The Kentucky project was among three chosen by the federal government to produce cellulosic ethanol. It's an alternative to ethanol made from corn, which critics say turns food into fuel and has driven corn prices higher.
"We know there are some conflicts between food and fuel with traditional corn-based ethanol," said Talina Mathews, executive director of Gov. Steve Beshear's office of energy policy.
A 2005 study by the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory found that cellulosic ethanol cut greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 86 percent, compared with conventional gasoline.
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said in a statement that the three cellulosic ethanol projects announced yesterday will help curb a rise in greenhouse gases while making home-grown fuel.
"Sustained investments in cellulosic fuels made from corncobs, wood chips, switchgrass and other agricultural waste will strengthen our nation's energy security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil," Bodman said.
The Ecofin plant has between 20 and 30 employees, but the work force could grow to nearly 100 once the facility reaches full production capacity of 100,000 gallons a year, said Alltech spokesman Billy Frey.
The fuel will be produced through a dry fermentation process, which Alltech has been doing in Mexico for about eight years, Frey said.
At the Washington County plant, Ecofin plans to buy raw materials from the surrounding area.
"We feel that we can pull that from inside Kentucky," Frey said.
Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502) 582-4675.
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Funding
$30 million DOE grant.
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Technology
Production:
• Capacity of more than 1 million gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol
Technology and Feedstocks:
• Solid state fermentation process developed by Alltech
• Corncobs
State of Readiness:
• Estimated to be operational in 2010
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Other
Info
Apr. 19--The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Alltech a grant of up to $30 million on Friday to help pay for a $70 million project to turn corn and other crops into fuel.
The biorefinery project in Washington County could lead to a statewide chain of ethanol plants.
"It is a huge grant," Alltech CEO Pearse Lyons said. "This is the last thing that was holding us back" from starting the project.
Construction will begin in June, and the refinery could be producing ethanol --a fuel that can be used in trucks and cars --in 15 or 16 months.
Ecofin LLC, an Alltech subsidiary, will be in charge of the project, and Excel Engineering will provide engineering services.
The University of Kentucky and the University of Cincinnati are working with Alltech on parts of the project, which is expected to create at least 93 jobs and give local farmers a new market for grains, grasses and related materials, such as corn cobs.
In addition to the federal money, the refinery will be financed by Alltech and by an $8 million incentive package approved in October by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.
Alltech is the Nicholasville-based biotechnology company that is paying $10 million to be the title sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2010.
Lyons, who founded Alltech in 1980 after earning a doctorate in yeast biochemistry, sees the Washington County biorefinery as the "anchor" for a series of rural biorefineries around the state.
He explained Alltech's Rural Community Biorefinery Program in October in a series of "Fueling the Future of Rural Kentucky" presentations in 12 midsize cities in the state.
The project's "implications for this state are enormous," Lyons declared last fall.
"We are not Silicon Valley," he said. "We have to focus on our agriculture bases."
Speaking at the same media conference, Washington County Judge-Executive John Settles said the biorefinery would mean new jobs and new markets for local farmers.
"I don't see how we can lose," Settles said.
On Friday, Lyons said "the bigger story than the grant is that the federal government is endorsing, or at least putting in a vote of confidence, into this ... biorefinery concept to the tune of $30 million.
"We are the only ones, in fact, to be using this technology," he said. "They have given us until 2010 to have it up and running. We believe in fact we will be up and running in 15 or 16 months."
Friday's announcement by the Department of Energy was the second round of awards for small-scale biorefineries. Four projects received grants earlier this year, and three more, including Alltech, were selected Friday to receive a total of $86 million over four years. The other two projects are in Maine and Tennessee.
Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said the grants announced Friday "will help pioneer the next generation" of biofuels that will be made primarily from non-food materials.
"Sustained investments in cellulosic fuels made from corn cobs, wood chips, switchgrass and other agricultural waste will strengthen our nation's energy security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil," Bodman said. |
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