Ethanol plant powered by cow dung
Posted: 6 December 2007
Panda Ethanol Inc. today announced that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has granted an air permit for the company’s planned 115 million gallon-per-year ethanol refinery in Sherman County, Texas.
The facility will be designed to annually refine an estimated 38 million bushels of feedstock-grade corn into a clean burning, renewable fuel for the nation’s transportation needs. The biofuel produced by the Sherman plant could displace approximately 2.6 million barrels of foreign oil a year.
"At present, we are principally focused on getting the Hereford facility on line in the first quarter of 2008," said Darol Lindloff, chief executive officer of Panda Ethanol.
"But we are also carefully managing the development of our other ethanol projects during a period of market uncertainty. When the markets rebound, we intend to be ready. The granting of the Sherman air permit is a step forward in that direction."
Unlike other ethanol facilities which burn natural gas to generate the steam used in the ethanol manufacturing process, the Sherman facility will be engineered to gasify up to 1 billion pounds of cattle manure per year.
By using biogas to fuel the plant, Panda is both conserving the energy equivalent of 1,000 barrels of oil a day and helping to address a significant environmental problem for the Texas Panhandle.
Once built, the Sherman refinery should be equal in size to Panda’s Hereford facility, currently nearing completion, which will be the largest biomass-fueled ethanol plant in the United States with one of the lowest carbon footprints of any similar-sized ethanol facility in the nation.
The Sherman facility is the fifth 115 million gallon-per-year ethanol project announced by Panda to receive air permits.
Panda’s Sherman refinery will be located on a 1,200 acre site three miles northwest of Stratford, Texas. Construction is dependent upon financing, additional regulatory approvals and other conditions.
Posted by Richard Price, Editor, EnergyME.com
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