Ethanol plant will produce more than fuel

Posted By Mark Hoult

Posted 1 year ago

Havelock-Belmont-Methuen – Kawartha Ethanol’s multimillion- dollar ethanol production facility east of Havelock is “just the mother ship” of an operation that will be the source of 11 main products, including electricity, says the company’s president and CEO, Randy Drew.

“Everything hinges around the ethanol plant, but the ethanol is just one source of product and revenue for this facility,” he said during an interview with The Community Press. “The traditional thinking in the industry is that ethanol is the main product, and everything else is byproduct, but we have no byproducts here. We will have 11 main products at the end of the day, and ethanol will only be one of them. And ethanol will not be the major source of revenue from this facility. That’s where we see the sustainability in the evolution of these plants.”

During a tour of the plant, which is still under construction, Drew offered some insights into its development and the cutting-edge technology he believes will disarm the criticisms being levelled against the growing ethanol industry.

Once the facility is up and running and its design and operation are understood, people will see a technologically advanced and environmentally sustainable plant, he said.

“The general consensus is that it will be very hard for anybody to find fault with this system. We’re trying to build a next generation, energy self-sustaining plant. The industry sees that as the next progression and a key to the real sustainability of ethanol production.”

In Collingwood and Chatham, some residents have raised concerns about odours and emissions from local ethanol refineries. And in Barrie, a group called Citizens Against Refining Ethanol in Barrie are opposing the construction of an ethanol facility in the old Molson Brewery, maintaining that plant should not be located in a densely populated area.

There is also a debate over whether or not food grains should be used to make fuel additives. The World Bank recently released a study that contends biofuel production is responsible for 75 per cent of the increase in global food prices.

Drew said the owners of Kawartha Ethanol have stopped commenting on the ethanol-food debate, believing it to be largely a media creation. The reality is that farmers were not making money selling corn, he said, stressing that Kawartha Ethanol came into existence because a group of area farmers were tired of selling their product for less than the cost of production.

“I’m a farmer, and I’m creating an end use for a product that we were being underpaid for. This facility was developed from a need,” he stated.

Drew described Kawartha Ethanol’s principal investors as “a group of farmers who were looking to ensure the sustainability of their farms and the farms in the area.”

And the facility they are building will incorporate a series of new technologies designed to capture and reuse energy and emissions, he indicated.

“There’s not one ounce of water discharged from this plant and not one ounce of waste product coming out of this plant,” he said, adding: “The Kawartha Ethanol Plant will be more cutting edge than any other plant in North America.”

Drew said a team of specialists made up of people from Germany, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ontario are working on the systems that will drive what will be an environmentally friendly plant.

“Eventually the sustainability of the ethanol plants will hinge on their environmental benefits and reduced energy consumption,” he said. “An ethanol plant that can excel in those areas will have distinct advantages.”

More than $46 million is going into the construction of the facility, and “the lions share is staying local,” Drew said.

The primary contractor for the plant is Port Hope-based Pro-Fab International, an industrial fabrication and construction company that is doing 60 per cent of the work on the ethanol plant.

Pro-Fab vice-president and project manager Jeff Andrews said energy and water conservation have been at the top of the agenda since the plant was designed. The plant will incorporate the best energy conservation technology, he said, noting that the facility will be a leader in energy and water conservation when it opens and will continue to improve, he said.

And Drew said the corn used at the plant will come from local farmers. He said he anticipates the plant will use up to 12 million bushels of corn per year at the outset. Within about two years, it will be processing about 24 million bushels and producing about 320 million litres of ethanol. He stressed the plant will build up its production in stages.

The new technologies being incorporated into the plant will be initiated one at a time, he said, calling their integration “a huge engineering and technical feat.”

As the corn comes in it will be stored in receiving bins before entering the plant, where it will be ground, liquified and fermented, Drew said, comparing the ethanol facility to “a big still.” Throughout the process, heat recycling equipment will be used to capture the energy being generated, he said.

The key to the entire process is the separation of the alcohol after the distillation process, Drew said. And the separation is done through a process of evaporation, distillation, dehydration and filtration. The distillers grains left over are sold as livestock feed. And the corn cobs are ground up and used as fertilizer. The facility will also contain large laboratory and office areas, Drew said.

Kawartha Ethanol will employ 40 people, including plant, lab, production, maintenance and commodities managers, Drew said, noting that the facility’s “value-added” production will result in an additional 30 jobs. So far Kawartha Ethanol has hired 10 people, and the hiring process will now focus on the five key managerial positions.

The company began by evaluating local applications for the key positions with a view to creating a short-list of applicants. Drew said he is hopeful some of the jobs on the short-list will go to local people.

The ethanol production facility should be up and running sometime in the new year, he said.