New Coal-Fired Ethanol Plant Goes On Line In Minnesota

[hatrack]

Well alrighty then . . .

HERON LAKE, Minn. — The latest trend in the green world of ethanol is a surprising one: coal. Minnesota’s first coal-fired ethanol plant soon will begin operation in Heron Lake, and it won’t be the last. The high price of natural gas is enticing new plant owners to embrace coal power. But while it may make economic sense, the choice of this fossil fuel to make a renewable one has some people shaking their heads. The move comes as Minnesota steps up its efforts to embrace cleaner and greener sources of energy and reduce carbon emissions. Critics say it’s a lousy idea to make renewable fuel in ways that generate more greenhouse gases than using gasoline.

“The country is investing in ethanol not only as a way to reduce our reliance on oil, but as a way to reduce our greenhouse emissions and our overall emissions,” said David Morris, a renewable energy specialist at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis. “I don’t deny there is a savings for these ethanol plants using coal instead of natural gas. But at the same time, the country is providing an enormous incentive for making the ethanol in the first place,” with a variety of subsidies.

Until now, all of Minnesota’s 16 corn-based ethanol plants were powered by natural gas, at least initially. But the soaring and unpredictable price of natural gas has everyone looking at alternatives. The most popular alternative for existing plants is generating heat with biomass, a green choice being used at plants in Little Falls, Winnebago and, soon, Benson.

But coal is making inroads among the newest ethanol plants, including one in Heron Lake, with another scheduled to begin construction this summer near Erskine in northwest Minnesota. The Web site of Heron Lake BioEnergy, where a 50 million-gallon-a-year plant is scheduled to open this month, touts coal’s advantages. The biggest: The firm can lock in a coal price that’s roughly one-third of the natural gas price, saving $5 million a year.

EDIT

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2007/03/06/mn/00m.txt

[GliderGuider]

1. Huzzah! We're saved!

Coal-fired ethanol plants are just as vertigo-inducing as those hypothetical nuclear-powered biofuel plants that we discussed yesterday.

What are these people thinking???? :banghead:

[jpak]

2. Three ethanol plants switch from natural gas to biomass for process heat

well alllllrrighty then....

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

3. Great. We'll burn up our topsoil for motor fuel, and distill it with fucking *coal*.

If there is a loving god, he'll kill me now.

[Nihil]

5. Got it in a nutshell!

(And you knew all along that your second statement was a safe bet.)

[Dead_Parrot]

8. C'mon, what's more important...

...taking the kids for a drivr-thru burger meal, or a pale blue dot?

Hey, keep the kids happy with DVD while you're crusin'! YEEE-HAWWW!!

[Strelnikov_]

4. The true insult is that they are using coal to produce a liquid fuel

with an EROEI of 1 versus converting the coal directly via CTL to produce a liquid fuel with an EROEI of 5.

Now that makes sense.


USEA NOW!!!

[hunter]

7. But think of the smiling corn farmers!

:woohoo:

[kestrel91316]

6. One step forward for energy self-sufficiency, two steps back for

CO2 emissions and other pollution.

[4dsc]

9. energy self-sufficiency??

I don't think so. This country is too large and we waste too much energy to ever become energy self-sufficient.

Energy self-sufficiency is nothing more than a cheap campaign slogan to feed the sheeple..

[kestrel91316]

10. I happen to disagree, and I EXPECT my country to make a serious

effort toward achieving that goal.

It needs to start with SERIOUS conservation. Maybe you want to be able to continue to waste energy. I for one am tired of being one of the few to bother.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. The two can go together

Self-sufficiency is more appealing in terms of politics and economics, and therefore easier to get started on: So long as it involves conservation to drive down the net energy use, it can have the same effect.

The danger comes when it includes fucked-up schemes like this, where the enviroment is sacrificed for "self-sufficiency". It should be a no-brainer, since you you can't grow corn for your coal-fired ethanol-o-matic if you've turned the cornbelt into a fucking desert, but humans are very good at being stupid.

[Shallah Kali]

12. Clean air laws are waved for ethanol plants. kinda defeats the purpose of don't ya think

I came across an article recently about one ethanol plant run off the waste heat of plant who's product I can't recall. it looks to me that ethanol is at best a stopgap measure until people learn to conserve & science comes up with more sustainable source of power but couldn't they at least look for more situations like that particular plant? argh.

[Shallah Kali]

13. Found the article - ethanol plant runs off waste heat from a coal plant

If they are using coal it is the least they can do to make the most use of it :/

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_064155245.html

Meanwhile, a greener variation on coal-fired ethanol debuted near Bismarck, N.D., last month, earning modest praise from environmentalists. Great River Energy, the Elk River-based power generator, located an ethanol plant next to an existing coal-burning plant. Heat for ethanol production is supplied entirely by waste heat from the coal plant. It's touted as the first such ethanol plant in the world.

"By using the waste steam from Coal Creek station, the ethanol plant didn't have to build a $20 to $25 million boiler, so it will make the ethanol plant a very low-cost producer," Great River spokesman Lyndon Anderson said.