Hugoton will be home to biomass ethanol plant

In the heart of natural gas country, plans were recently announced to build the first commercial production facility in the U.S. to convert biomass to ethanol fuel.

Hugoton, Kan., located in southwest Kansas, has long been the home to a vast natural gas field. But it will now also be home to Abengoa Energy, a worldwide leader in cellulose ethanol research.

The new plant should be completed in 2010 and is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy. Abengoa Bioenergy New Technologies is constructing the facility that is designed to produce approximately 13 million gallons of ethanol annually from a daily input of 930 tons of cellulosic crop residue. The company anticipates using stock such as switch grass, corn stover, grain sorghum and wheat straw from mainly a 50-mile radius of Hugoton. The facility will also produce 88 million gallons of ethanol using traditional grain processing.

Impact for agriculture

Abengoa figures it only needs about 4 percent to 7 percent of the available biomass within a 50-mile radius of the production plant to satisfy the new plant's 930 tons per day appetite, from which ethanol will be produced. A certain amount of crop residue needs to stay on the land to maintain long-term soil health and productivity; however, there is also an amount that can be collected without any detrimental impact on the soil.

"The biomass we would be collecting is material that is going to go away, no matter what," says Tom Robb, Ph.D., Abengoa's Manager for Co-Product Development, who estimates farmers will burn off the residue, or let it sit or incorporate it back into the soil. "Now," he emphasizes," farmers can sell the residue as an annual crop."

When the plant is up and running farmers will be able to increase their income-generating potential on a regular basis. "Dry land farmers in southwest Kansas are feeding their families on $25 an acre now," Dr. Robb estimates. "So if we increase that amount by $8 or $9 dollars an acre, they're getting a significant raise from a small percentage of materials that they just might have considered refuse anyway. The biomass windfall for farmers won't be a temporary phenomenon," he adds. "From year to year, they can count on it."

Significance for Kansas

The announcement of the new plant was attended by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. "Twenty to 25 years from today you are going to look back to today as a historic day," she said.

Sebelius told the crowd she was pleased with Kansas and rural Kansans in particular for their foresight in working to bring companies like Abengoa to the state. "We are sending a very strong message from the Heartland of our commitment to renewable energy."

She also praised the partnership for economic development reasons. "The good news is that this is going to create new jobs for Kansas." The plant is estimated to bring 125 new jobs to Hugoton along with at $5.5 million payroll.

U.S. Congressman Jerry Moran, also told the group he sees energy independence as key in fighting terrorism. When the United States reaches a point of being dependent on the middle East for energy production, we will all live in a safer place, he said.

Ethanol from biomass has been touted as the future of ethanol production, but has not been commercially feasible in the past. Abengoa says its engineers and scientists have recently advanced a vital pretreatment step in the cellulose ethanol production process that expands the molecular structures of the cellulose in biomass materials, allowing enzymes to convert cellulose efficiently to glucose.

"We have invested heavily in the last several years to develop enzymatic hydrolysis," said Gerson Santos, Abengoa Bioenergy New Technologies Corporate Director. "Biomass offers environmental advantages and allows the use of materials normally discarded in grain and crop production to be a useful part of sustainable energy production."

Abengoa Bioenergy is also the largest European ethanol producer and the fifth largest producer in the United States.

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9/10/07

2 Star EK

Date: 9/6/07

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