Cow powered ethanol plant enters production

It took six months longer than expected, but E3 BioFuels of Nebraska is now in production at what it describes as the world's first "closed-loop" ethanol plant.

The plant is being fueled largely by biogas from animal waste instead of coal or natural gas, yielding huge savings in the increasingly expensive ethanol production process, company officials claim.

"It took a little time to get this up and running. The construction took a little longer than we expected," acknowledged spokesperson Nathan Dayani to the Cleantech Group.

The company originally aimed to be in production late last year (see the Cleantech Group's Cow-powered ethanol heyday.)

"It’s been a learning process putting these technologies together. Nobody’s really done an integration of technologies like this."

E3 BioFuels' patented closed-loop ethanol system produces energy by combining manure, collected from an adjacent 28,000-head cattle feedlot owned by an affiliated company, with thin stillage, a byproduct of ethanol refining.

The liquid mixture is decomposed inside an anaerobic digester, where bacteria extract methane-rich biogas that is used to fire the plant's ethanol boilers. Traditional ethanol refineries are fueled by coal or natural gas.

In addition to the considerable environmental benefits of helping deal with cattle waste, the company boasts its process yields a huge boost in energy efficiency, claiming its closed-loop system can produce a net energy balance of over 46, i.e. 46 units of energy (in the form of ethanol) for each unit of fossil fuel energy required.

That's more than 15 times more efficient than conventional ethanol plants, the efficiency of which is approximately 3:1 or lower, the company said.

And there are other savings, said E3's Dayani, even when it comes to the disposal of the distiller grains byproduct of ethanol production.

"We don’t dry the grains. We can feed grains directly back to our the cattle wet. Most companies are forced to sink money and capital equipment into drying grains before they ship them elsewhere. We get additional efficiencies by not having to use energy to dry the grain."

"This plant sets a new standard for ethanol production in this state and our nation, and is an example of the innovation needed to take this industry to the next level," Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman said at E3's facility dedication yesterday.

The $80 million Genesis Plant is to produce 25 million gallons of ethanol a year, albeit small by conventional ethanol plant sizes, while at the same time consuming 300,000 tons of manure. It is providing 90 jobs in Mead, Nebraska, population 564.

E3 plans to locate more plants in several Midwestern states, and license the technology for others to use as well. Once it becomes commercially feasible to refine ethanol from plant cellulose, E3 will have a ready supply of cellulose already on site in the form of leftover material from the biogas digester unit, the company noted.

And, it's been a fun process, according to E3's Dayani.

"We've been like kids in a sixth grade science class."

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