ATHENS — Don’t think of a modern ethanol plant like the Johnstown facility as a mere producer of green energy from corn kernels. That’s only the first step.
Today’s ethanol plant is really the "potential hub, the starting note of a biorefinery capability," a place that might eventually process corn cobs and other field material to produce ethanol for uses even beyond the gas pump — including the burgeoning hand sanitizer market — according to Greenfield Ethanol Inc. CEO and president Bob Gallant.
At a demonstration plant the firm intends to set up this year in Chatham, Greenfield aims to develop a "bolt-on" technology that could allow its flagship Johnstown site — and other ethanol plants — to add corn cobs to their menu. Such an addition could boost ethanol output by 10 to 15 per cent at a typical facility, Gallant told an economic development conference here Jan. 15.
Also on the output side is waste carbon dioxide with the potential to serve neighbouring industries, an idea the Township of Edwardsburgh/Cardinal is attempting to pursue for the surrounding industrial park at Johnstown.
But the center of the envisioned hub is alcohol "one of the most tired old molecules in the world," quipped Gallant, a former chemical company executive and engineer prior to joining his current employer in July 2000.
Aside from slight differences in processing, "beverage alcohol, industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol, are exactly the same product," he noted, while an image of alcohol-based food and hand sanitizer bottles flashed onto the overhead screen, declaring them a "very significant market for us right now because of H1N1."
Before Greenfield was Greenfield, it made only commercial and beverage alcohols, under the name Commercial Alcohols Inc. That diversified exposure in the alcohol business has helped the firm weather the fuel ethanol trade, "a fairly risky business over the last 10 years in North America," he acknowledged.
"It continues to be that way. It’s getting better, but getting into the fuel ethanol business, for anyone in the past, meant choosing to position yourself between two unrelated commodities, an agricultural commodity (corn or another grain) on the input side ... and basically a petroleum-based petroleum product on the other side, gasoline," he explained.
While the ethanol producer winds up absorbing all of the risk in that equation, he noted that Greenfield, because of its history, isn’t limited to the fuel sector, a fortunate strength for the company.
"So we basically have a business model that has two different key segments. And that’s helped us ride out some fairly rough periods and allowed us to make the type of investments that we have in Johnstown," he said in reference to the $185-million plant, designed to produce 200-million litres of ethanol annually from 20 million bushels of corn.
Totally fuel-oriented ethanol firms south of the border, where 200 ethanol plants now operate, haven’t fared as well recently. "In the U.S., some of our confreres are suffering," he said, "as they made poor decisions on inputs or were over leveraged."
But he also made clear that fuel ethanol "is no fad" in North America, highlighting that the number of plants in the U.S. numbered only a handful a decade ago. "It’s here and it’s here to stay."
Greenfield continues to explore ways of diversifying both the inputs and the outputs at its existing Canadian ethanol plants at Johnstown, Chatham, Tiverton, and Varennes, he said.
In addition to pursuing the sanitizer market, the firm runs a U.S. operation that processes, triple packages and irradiates alcohol to create an "ultra-pure" product sold to hospitals and universities for research purposes. "It’s the same molecule that we sell in bulk out of Johnstown, that finds its way to a very specialized market. It’s also a small market that’s growing immensely."
He also revealed that Greenfield is working with another firm on the development of a runway de-icer made from succinic acid, which can be synthesized from ethanol. Unlike regular deiicer, the new product does not destroy airplanes’ costly braking systems, he said, adding that airports are "falling all over themselves" at the prospect.
"We’re back to the bolt-on concept. You could bolt on one of these acid plants onto a Johnstown, onto a Chatham, onto any one of the fuel ethanol plants in North America."
The idea fits with Gallant’s incremental approach to achieving technological advances at the company. "Finding new things that produce a return right now, to give you a new platform to stand on, is what we’re all about," said the CEO, who eschews the pursuit of "one giant leap" in company research.
Corn cobs
This philosophy fits with Greenfield’s interest in making cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs, allowing it to employ a simpler method that "focuses on the sugars that are easiest to get at," he said.
In terms of technical difficulty, turning corn cobs into ethanol ranks somewhere between the easy corn kernel on one extreme, and difficult switchgrass or corn stover on the other, he said.
At the planned demonstration plant being built this year, "we’re looking at a little bit of science with a lot of really good engineering," he said, "rather than a whole lot of science that doesn’t have the engineering in place yet."
Compared to other methods of brewing cellulosic ethanol from plant fibres, Greenfield’s cob technology "is a different approach," he said, adding, "It’s a safer approach, and it provides relatively immediate profitability potential."
The cellulosic residue left behind is also much cleaner than that created by other research institutions attempting to make cellulosic ethanol "from scratch," he said.
Two world-class partners are involved with Greenfield in the corn cob initiative, including a prominent enzyme maker and a company involved with the specialized washing processes employed by the pulp and paper industry. "They feel they have the scale-up capability, with their engineering strength, to work with us, so we’re pretty excited."
Greenfield has tested the concept with cobs from two farms using modified combines, one in Ontario and one in the U.S., he said.
By volume, cobs are much lighter than kernels, which poses a transportation challenge, Gallant conceded. "The problem with cobs is that they weigh nothing. A truckload of cobs is like, 10 tonnes, so it’s an inefficient load."
Still, "all of the cobs in Ontario would be the equivalent [ethanol output] of one plant like Chatham," he pointed out. "We’d like to believe that farmers are going to get excited about it."
He said the firm is similarly exploring the possibility of applying the same technology to make ethanol from Miscanthus, a type of prairie grass that can be grown on marginal farmland.
Greenfield is also looking at using Miscanthus as a fuel for co-generation electricity plants, pressing the grass into combustible cubes in that case.
In another alternative energy project, the company and a partner are running an experimental facility that captures methane from sorted municipal waste at Edmonton, Alberta.
Biorefinery capability
In the end, it’s all about finding even more ways to harvest the sun’s power for energy and — into the future — chemical purposes.
"The oil and chemical industry, where I spent 35 years, basically does the same thing," Gallant remarked with a tone of irony. "Except they put a few million years between the sun shining ... and extracting the crude oil or natural gas, which are the feedstocks for most chemicals."
A biorefinery effectively "short circuits" the long wait by relying on the immediate output of a sunlight-capturing crop, to produce alchohol "a basic component of most chemicals you’re familiar with," he said, describing this business model as a very attractive one.
News
February, 2010
Vol. 34, No. 2
NEWS
