01/31/07 Ethanol from straw, part two

A group of southeastern Idaho farmers has a business plan that will enable them to provide up to 800 thousand tons of wheat and barley straw to a facility that would convert that cellulosic material into ethanol. The chairman of the group, Rupert grower Duane Grant says they figured the cost of delivering the chopped up material at 45 dollars per ton, but that was before oil prices doubled last summer. GRANT "It's a new paradigm so perhaps we can say delivered to Iogen instead of 45 perhaps it would be 55 to 60 dollars per ton." A three year study lead to a business plan that is based on dry materials, straw with 15 percent or less moisture content. GRANT "If you move into high moisture biomass such as corn stover our model won't work per say because we don't have a component to deal with the moisture content." Grant says the carbon balance is essentially zero, making this fuel environmentally friendly. GRANT "We capture the carbon as we grow the crop then we refine the carbon out and make it into fuel. The fuel is burned and that same carbon is released back into the atmosphere to be recycled again through growing plants." The farmers are ready to deliver straw, now its time for a company to step forward to make the move to cellulosic ethanol production in Idaho. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott