The 15-year-old file in Mark Greenley’s office for the property on 78th Street southeast of Blairstown is growing thicker.

It was back in 1995 when a group of investors, including many area farmers, obtained approval for a promising new venture – an ethanol plant.

Greenley oversees the Benton County land use changes, which are necessary for such projects.

The plant first opened in 1998 as the Sunrise Energy Cooperative, but closed after a few months of operation. It reopened again under a new name – 78th Street Ethanol – and new management. But that venture failed, as well. Many investors – including many area farmers – lost much of what they had invested in the operation.

In October of 2004, the Xenthanol company, based in New York, bought the facility for $5.74 million in what is believed to be the largest sheriff’s sale in Benton County history. That company invested heavily in the plant, and it reopened in 2005. But that venture also ended in failure.

In November of 2009, Xenthanol sold the entire facility to Fiberright for $1.65 million – more than $4 million less than it had paid five years earlier.

Craig Stewart-Paul, the owner of Fiberight, LLC, has been working with county officials for the past year, as he and his company began converting the plant.

In May of this year, the company issued a following press release containing this information about its initial successes:

“Fiberight LLC announced today that it commenced production at the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant using enzymatic conversion technology and industrial/municipal solid waste (MSW) as feedstock. Fiberight recently completed its initial stage development by converting a former first generation corn ethanol plant in Blairstown, Iowato cellulosic biofuel production which incorporates specialized waste treatment and biochemical technologies to efficiently turn MSWinto biofuel. Fiberight has retained Source Capital Group Inc. of Westport, Conn., to complete a financing led by Venture Cross Partners of Great Falls, Va. to provide expansion capital for the Blairstown biorefinery. Following a total $24 million investment, the facility will be scaled to final commercial production capacity of approximately 6 MMgy in 2011.”

In layman’s terms, what Fiberight does is take waste from a paper mill in Cedar Rapids, and uses rare bacteria – Stewart Paul refers to that bacteria as “the bugs” – to convert the sugar in that waste into ethanol.

And so far, Fiberight is succeeding.

“He’s had great success,” said Ranae Becker, the director of the Benton Development Group.

Becker attended Tuesday’s meeting of the supervisors to discuss the project.

Stewart-Paul plans to visit with the supervisors in the next few weeks to talk about the next phase of his plan: Using regular kitchen waste to produce ethanol.

The supervisors see both potential and challenges in this process.

“He has shown in can be done on a minor scale,”’ said Supervisor Dave Vermedahl. “But will it work on a larger scale?”

The supervisors believe that the main challenge is that working with the paper mill waste provides a consistent initial product. But using household garbage would involve using a raw material that varies day-to-day.

Stewart-Paul believes that he can succeed; if so, he can help solve two of America’s largest problems: Energy and solid waste.

“This would make us one of the first in the country to do this,” said supervisor Ron Buch. “This could be a big thing if they can figure it out.”

Stewart Paul has told the supervisors in previous meetings that in the ideal situation, garbage trucks would first haul their waste to Fiberright. Then anything that could not be used to make ethanol would be taken to the landfill, which is southwest of Blairstown.

“Instead of turning right, they would turn left,” he said of the garbage trucks.

The supervisors are in favor of that, but have questions about the county’s investment, and other long-term issues.

“You can tell him we are interested but we have a lot of questions,” Vermedahl said to Becker.

Atlanta company American Process Incorporated has started work on a waste-to-ethanol biorefinery at Alpena, Michigan.

The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the site last week, attended by Michigan Governor Jennifer M Granholm.

The project is supported by a $17.9 million federal grant from the US Department of Energy and a $4 million grant from the State of Michigan, designating it as a bioenergy Center of Energy Excellence.

Located at the Decorative Panels International hardwood plant in Alpena, the API biorefinery will turn wood waste into around 890,000 gallons cellulosic ethanol each year.

API, which has invested $10 million into the plant, believes its process has the potential to be replicated across the state in other biorefineries, pulp and paper mills, and food and agricultural processing plants.

The company completed a demonstration plant in Thomaston, Georgia, in February 2010.

Diversify
“Businesses across the state are making significant investments that will diversify our economy and create job opportunities in clean energy sectors like biofuels, solar, wind and advanced batteries,” Gov Granholm said. “Projects like this one are helping Michigan become the clean energy manufacturing capital of the world.”

The project has been developed in partnership with San Antonio’s Valero Energy Corporation, and will see Michigan Technical University contributing research to improve fermentation processes.

The research will also look into the use of the by-product sodium acetate for as a de-icing product.

The projects which began in late 2007 are providing the newly trained Afghan National Army with two new, regional infantry  brigade sized facilities complete with all support functions.  The design-build program is scheduled for full turn over to the Afghan Army in the fall of this year.

An APS engineer discusses construction issues in Kunduz with a US Army Corps of Engineers representative

APS continues to positioned itself at the forefront of the biomass, waste-to-energy and second generation ethanol sector, providing technical expertise to the industry throughout the US and abroad.   Contact Wayne Fuller at APS for more information on these services.

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Also in attendance were several APS clients including Mr. Craig Stuart-Paul of Fiberight, who made an exciting presentation on the company’s latest efforts to convert non-traditional feedstock, such as paper mill waste and municipal solid waste to fuel grade ethanol.

The 2010 FEW Expo boasted over 2,500 attendees and 600 exhibitors.  The event drew people from over 30 countries and the United States and Canada, including existing and under construction ethanol plants in North America.

The FEW Expo is a conference tailored for ethanol producers, their consultants and suppliers to the industry.

The 2011 FEW Expo is slated for June 27-30, 2011 in Indianapolis, IN.

Prior to a scale up project at the Blairstown facility, APS assisted Fiberight with its pilot plant operations in Virginia.

In Iowa, an existing corn based process facility was selected to scale up the pilot process to commercial production. The outdated corn ethanol production process was modified to accept cellulosic feedstock, to include paper mill and municipal solid waste.

APS designed extensive modifications to the plant to incorporate proprietary digestion and fermentation techniques, as well as processes to help convert organic pulps into cellulosic sugars.   The ongoing project will continue the technical development of various feed-stocks including municipal solid waste, organic industrial waste, biomass and traditional sugar/starch products.

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]]> http://www.apsengineers.com/news/aps-uses-innovative-design-for-afghan-project/feed/ 0 http://www.apsengineers.com/project-overview/afghan-national-army-facilities/ http://www.apsengineers.com/project-overview/afghan-national-army-facilities/#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:06:38 +0000 Admin http://www.apsengineers.com.php5-17.websitetestlink.com/?p=76 APS has designed four facilities for use by the Afghan National Army (ANA). The $180 million fast track, design-build program was completed for the Combined Security Transition Command, Afghanistan (CSTC-A).

Each 4,000 person garrison complex includes all self sustaining facilities located within a one square kilometer secure perimeter.

As the Designer of Record, APS was responsible for all disciplines on the project. In addition, APS engineers and project managers deployed to the projects for extended periods to provide onsite support to the foreign national construction companies. The projects were designed and built to US building code standards.  The total under roof area of the APS designed facilities was over 4,000,000 square feet.

As a primary member of this Design-Build program, APS was responsible for all design packages including:

• Site Development and Force Protection Design
• Two 10 megawatt power stations
• 8,000 Meters of underground Medium Voltage Electrical Distribution
• 10,000 Meters of Fiber Optic communications cable
• Water and wastewater systems
• Living quarters for 8,000 troops
• Five Stand-Alone Dining facilities
• Operational and vehicle maintenance facilities
• Two Emergency Battlefield Care Medical Clinics
• Weapons, ammunition and general equipment storage

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When BI Chemicals in Petersburg, VA made the decision to expand one of its existing process lines, it turned to APS for technical assistance.  The project involved the installation of process and utility equipment to further production of  active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) line.

Installed equipment included:

• 2000 gallon Glass Lined Carbon Steel Reactor with agitator,
• 1000 gallon Glass lined Carbon Steel Receiver,
• Tantalum Heat Exchanger,
• Hastelloy-C Centrifuge,
• 1500 gallon Glass lined Carbon Steel Mother Liquor Receiver,
• 200 gallon Stainless Steel Pressure Rated Wash Tank with agitator,
• Ethylene Glycol Temperature Control Unit,
• Vacuum Pump with Condensate Tank,
• Chiller Unit,
• Sampling system with pH Probe.

All associated process piping and controls were designed and installed to support this equipment.   Piping materials consisted of carbon steel, stainless steel, Hastelloy C, and lined pipe.  All support steel and concrete flooring were included in the project.   The control system consisted of a Delta V controller with remote Stahl I/O and two local Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). The control system used conventional I/O, Foundation Feildbus (FF), Profibus DP, and DeviceNet.

The installation met the requirements of Class 1 Division 1 Group C & D.