Upstate Energy

Construction to Begin on Two New Ethanol Fuel Plants

Two developers plan to break ground this year on new fuel ethanol plants in upstate New York, hoping to tap a growing market.

by Fred Fanning

Two companies are planning to break ground on new renewable-fuel ethanol plants in upstate New York. The plants would create a product to replace a gasoline oxygenation agent that New York and Connecticut banned last year.

One project in Fulton, N.Y., will entail converting a former brewery into an ethanol plant. The other involves new construction of an $80 million plant on the banks of the Erie Canal in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

The state's ban on methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, follows years of studies that show the additive pollutes groundwater and is a carcinogen. The ban has created a market for fuel ethanol as a replacement oxygenation agent, and according to Seneca Falls-based Empire Biofuels, one of the developers, 300 million gallons of ethanol are already blended into gasoline sold in New York.

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In addition to the demand, one of the plants responds to the logic that it's easier to transport local corn to a nearby plant than to transport ethanol from outside the region to the New York market, said Anne Marie McManus, senior associate at Malcolm Pirnie of White Plains, N.Y. The environmental engineering firm is handling environmental permitting for Empire Biofuels, a consortium of New York corn growers.

"It makes more sense to put the plants where the ethanol demand is," McManus said. "There are only 80 facilities nationwide, so Empire Biofuels is filling a need in this region."

Construction of the Seneca Falls plant is slated to begin this fall. In addition to supplying the fuel ethanol market, it could also produce sweetened corn syrup or make ethanol from alternative feedstock.

"We are starting with corn at our production facility because we are corn farmers, and that is what we know," said Jeannette Marvin of Empire Biofuels. "But we are not closing our eyes to the future, and may expand the possibilities of the products we can produce."

A joint venture is handling construction of the plant, led by T. E. Ibberson Co., an agribusiness construction and engineering firm in Hopkins, Minn. The other partners are Delta-T Corp., a Williamsburg, Va., construction company with several ethanol plants in its portfolio, and the Industrial Co. of Steamboat Springs, Colo.

"T.E. Ibberson is taking the lead on the project," said Wayne Wajciechowski, project manager with Delta-T. "We are applying engineering and technology."

The plant, slated for completion a year after groundbreaking, will draw limited amounts of water from the nearby canal, and will have rail infrastructure onsite.

Meanwhile, in the other project, Northeast Biofuels of Dewitt, N.Y., is planning to transform a former Miller Brewing Co. facility in the Riverview Business Park in Fulton into a fuel ethanol production plant.

The facility will use many of the brewing vessels and fermentation tanks already in place, because the fermentation process is similar for beer and ethanol. But the ethanol brewing process takes a further step by removing moisture through distillation columns and molecular sieves. Therefore, the $160 million project also entails the construction of a new cooling tower and twin distilling columns inside the existing facility.

"We are going to drop one of the buildings that used to have grains drying for Miller Brewery," added J. Michael Hadley, CFO of Northeast Biofuels. "We are going to erect our own grains-drying grain storage area."

The main reason to replace the Miller grains building is that it was designed to leave water in the grains. The new building will dry the grains completely, but its equipment needs more space.

With O'Brien and Gere Engineers of Syracuse, N.Y., recently completing the permitting process, Lurgi PSI, a Memphis-based firm, is expected to begin construction this summer. Among the major interior tasks will be retrofitting the electrical and piping systems.

On the outside, a new six-cell cooling tower on the southern part of the site will be the most visible part of the construction effort. The 20- by 60- by 15-ft. structure will remove excess heat during the fermentation process.

Other sitework will involve railyard infrastructure improvements to prepare the facility to handle 250 rail cars per week of Midwest corn. The yard will also act as an anchor location for the state's North Country freight rail system.

"This will be one of the largest privately held railyards on the CSX line east of the Mississippi," said Stewart Hancock, a spokesman for Northeast Biofuels.

Another company, meanwhile, plans to construct a $15 million liquefaction plant to capitalize on a byproduct of the ethanol plant - the large volume of carbon dioxide released when corn ferments into alcohol. That adjacent facility, planned by BOC Group of the United Kingdom, will harvest, scrub, and compress the CO2. It will produce more than 800 tons of CO2 annually for use in a variety of products, such as soda, beer, and other carbonated beverages, and as a propellant in aerosol cans as well.

Key Players

Empire Biofuels ethanol plant
Owner: Empire Biofuels, Dewitt, N.Y.

Construction Manager: The Industrial Co., Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Process Technology Contractor: Delta-T Corp., Williamsburg, Va.

Construction Manager (grains handling): T.E. Ibberson, Hopkins, Minn.

Environmental Engineer: Malcolm Pirnie Inc., White Plains, N.Y.

Northeast Biofuels ethanol plant:
Owner: Northeast Biofuels, Fulton, N.Y.

Construction Manager, Engineer: Lurgi PSI, Memphis

Engineer: O'Brien and Gere Engineers, Syracuse, N.Y.

Useful Sources

Renewable Fuels Association

Governor's Ethanol Coalition

American Coalition for Ethanol

Ethanol Producers and Consumers

National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition