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World Biofuels
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November 13-15, 2005
Beijing, China
2nd Annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit
December 13-15, 2005
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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National Biodiesel
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February 5-8, 2006
San Diego, California
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11th Annual
National Ethanol Conference: "Policy & Marketing"
February 20-22, 2006
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
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Renewable Fuels Association
22nd
Annual International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo
June 20-23, 2006
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
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Posted on
January 3, 2003Texas looks to get first ethanol plant By JOHN LeBAS
Eagle Staff Writer
A coalition of Central Texas grain farmers wants to build an ethanol plant that would annually produce 40 million gallons of the clean-burning fuel, creating a new market for corn and milo crops and about 30 area jobs.
Milam County farmer Kit Worley, president of Central Texas Ag Development, said the group aims to conduct a feasibility study for the proposed $55 million plant.
“We would like to say it’s going to be farmer-owned,” Worley said. “But at the same time, we have to be realistic and know our farmers’ pockets are only so deep. We might have to go to venture capitalists or something like that to help fund it.”
The ag development group, which includes farmers from 10 Central Texas counties, has received a $65,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund the study, Worley said. But because it’s a matching grant, the group needs to find more funding to secure the federal dollars and launch the study.
A public meeting about the feasibility study will be held at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 15 in the ABC Equipment Shop, F.M. 50 at F.M. 60 in Burleson County.
The study would determine where the plant should be built, Worley said. While it may end up in Brazos County or nearby, Worley said the exact location is relatively unimportant to the farmers because the plant would pay transport costs and equal prices for their grain.
The facility would have to be built near a rail line and utilities, including water and natural gas, he said.
Corn and milo can be used to make ethanol, a gasoline additive that results in cleaner-burning fuel. Some low-emissions vehicles are designed to run on a mix that is mostly ethanol.
Ethanol is considered an environmentally palatable replacement for MTBE, an additive that makes gasoline burn cleaner but can pollute soil and groundwater.
Across the country, 60 ethanol plants are operational and another 20 are under construction or consideration, Worley said. However, none are in Texas — the nearest is in Portales, N.M.
Worley said the idea for a regional production plant took root last year when he attended a Department of Energy conference in Austin. There, he learned about the growing number of Texas counties facing an air pollution crisis.
Worley spoke with San Antonio officials who have ethanol shipped from the Midwest to fuel their fleet of clean-air vehicles. He said they told him the city would buy from a Texas plant if one was built.
The farmers’ main motivation is creating a local source of clean fuel to combat pollution, Worley said.
“This is real,” he said. “It’s real, it’s happening. Let us be part of the solution.”
It would also give corn and milo farmers another market for their crops.
About half the 2 million acres of corn farmed in Texas is grown in dryland, or nonirrigated areas, said Travis Miller, associate head and extension program leader for the Soil and Crop Sciences Department at Texas A&M.;
Dryland corn is susceptible to a fungus that causes aflatoxin, Miller said. The presence of aflatoxin greatly reduces a crop’s value.
However, aflatoxin-tainted corn can be used for ethanol production, preserving its value, Miller said. Almost all the corn grown in Central Texas is now sold for feed here and abroad.
“So now you’d have two different markets — you can sell it for feed, or you can sell it as a raw product for biofuels,” he said.
Miller said the Department of Energy and the USDA have encouraged states to develop ethanol production to boost agriculture producers and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
“That’s you’re classic win-win situation right there,” he said.
Ethanol plants in other states have proven profitable and helpful to farmers, Miller added.
Worley, who said he has received encouraging feedback from regional lawmakers about the proposed plant, said his group hopes for more support from researchers at Texas A&M; and other universities.
“We will be looking for their continued expertise,” Worley said.
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