Iowa Public Television's Market To Market program just did a story on a biofuels plant in Nebraska which, according to plant owners, will achieve up to 46 units of energy output for every unit of energy input! Compared to the 2.2/1 ratio the USDA estimates, and other estimates which put the ratio of output to input lower, this plant could demonstrate how to improve that ratio.
While the plant has just opened recently, it is called the "Genesis" plant because the owners want to propagate the operation across the Midwest. The company, E3 Biofuels, employs 90 people at this first facility and was started by a farmer with the goal to produce fuel and recycle coproducts in a single operation.
The operation integrates several energy production and byproduct utilization systems into a single farm operation. The story shows the main features of the plant, which consumes corn and manure from a cattle feedlot and produces feed, fertilizer and irrigation water for 2200 acres of corn.
The main three systems integrated into the operation are:
- ethanol production
- feeding distiller's grain byproduct to livestock
- producing biogas from livestock manure and using it to power the plant's processes
The water used in the process is reused as much as possible, then put into a rubber-lined lagoon to irrigate the corn crops.
While the details of the plant are proprietary, and the operation will have to run for a while to understand its dynamics and issues, it illustrates the kind of integrated solutions which could make a real difference in the fight for energy independence. It also may prove to be the kind of design to shift the energy balance equation on ethanol (especially when cellulosic ethanol processes can be implemented at this scale) production.
In addition, when sugar beet and sugar cane farmers can break the stranglehold corn producers have on fermentation ethanol (even though I am from a corn producing state, Brazil has demonstrated sugar beets and cane are better crops and have innovated closed-loop plants -- innovations to which we should pay attention), other kinds of integrated systems may be possible.
No solution is perfect, but in the corn ethanol space, this is a bold and interesting design.
I just saw the story and wanted others to take a look and comment on it.