In Georgia woods, plant rising to turn pine trees into fuel
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007
SOPERTON, Ga. — Among the tall pines of rural Georgia, construction began last week on the first U. S. commercial plant designed to turn trees and wood scraps into biofuel. Range Fuels Inc. broke ground on an estimated $ 225 million factory that it says will turn wood waste into ethanol to fuel cars and trucks and, possibly, lessen U. S. dependence on foreign oil.
The brainchild and financial beneficiary of dot-com billionaire Vinod Khosla, Range Fuels plans to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year by the end of 2008. If successful — and technological uncertainties abound — Khosla’s factory promises to be the first commercially viable cellulosic ethanol factory in the nation, if not the world.
The U. S. Department of Energy chose the Range Fuels plant in Georgia as one of six projects to receive $ 385 million in federal funding aimed at jump-starting ethanol production from nontraditional, cellulose-based sources such as wood chips, switchgrass and citrus peels. The Georgia plant expects to receive $ 76 million.
The plant will use a chemical process that heats timber waste and mill residue and transforms it into a heavy synthesis gas. The gas, known as “syngas,” is then refined into a liquid and turned into ethanol and methanol. Eventually, Range Fuels plans to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol annually at the plant.
Treutlen County, where the plant will be, has little industry and much pine tree waste. The little city of Soperton, about 155 miles southeast of Atlanta, has been dubbed the Million Pines City.
“Forestry is one of our main industries. We’re right in the middle of miles and miles and miles of forest,” said Hugh Beasley, a Treutlen County commissioner. “We’re hoping and praying that [cellulosic ] works, not only for us but for the whole country.”
While the Midwest depends on ethanol made from corn for its biofuels industry, Georgia — with its 24 million acres of sustainable forests — will hitch its renewable-fuel wagon to pine trees.
Broomfield, Colo.-based Range Fuels says it will hire 70 people to work at the factory in an industrial park outside Soperton. Company officials said Range hopes to build additional alternative fuel factories in Georgia.
“We need to declare a war on oil,” said Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. “Corn ethanol started this war, [but ] as the war escalates we need better weapons. Cellulosic ethanol is the weapon we need.”
U. S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who attended the groundbreaking, said cellulosic ethanol has “more net energy than corn.”
Corn ethanol, though, has a big head start. Supporters say it has proved to be commercially viable at the level of oil prices that most analysts foresee for the near future, although critics counter that making 4 gallons of corn ethanol takes the energy equivalent of 3 gallons of it. Another down side is that food prices have risen because of so much corn being diverted to ethanol production. In particular, corn is a main source of feed for animals that provide the nation’s meat.
Mitch Mandich, chief executive officer of Range Fuels, asserted that the Soperton plant will be able to produce 10 gallons of ethanol from wood using the energy equivalent of a single gallon. He said the process will be more environmentally friendly than corn ethanol because it requires far less water and will rely largely on scrap wood leftover from timber harvests that would otherwise be left to burn or rot.
But Ross Harding, a vice president with the Herty Advanced Materials Development Center in Savannah, Ga., a statefunded development authority, cautioned that there are “drawbacks around the technical issues” involving cellulosic ethanol.
Despite Harding’s concerns, the Herty center’s goal is to boost Georgia’s timber industry by $ 5 billion over the next 10 years via alternative fuels; double, to 120, 000, the number of forest industry jobs; and break ground on another 30 renewable-fuel factories.
“If we take just the surplus and waste [pine tree ] material, we should be able to replace 20 percent of the state’s fuel within 10 years,” Harding said. He added that Range Fuels “is the most exciting opportunity for the forest industry out there. It looks to me like the real deal.”
Helping the outlook for ethanol, automakers plan to offer more vehicles that burn E-85, which is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Vehicles without special preparation can burn blends that are 5 percent or 10 percent ethanol. Information for this article was provided by Dan Chapman of Cox News Service and Russ Bynum and Greg Bluestein of The Associated Press.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
