03/15/07 Treasure Valley biorefinery

Farm and Ranch March 15, 2007 Construction should begin this spring on a biorefinery near Ontario, Oregon. That's the word from John Hamilton, project manager with Treasure Valley Renewable Resources LLC. Hamilton: "The status is that we have all our permits. Every permit we need is in place. We have the land bought. We have the equipment ordered and we are going to start construction this spring. As soon as the frost gets out of the ground we will turn the dirt." The facility will use about 15 million bushels annually of wheat and barley and the primary products will be the protein, fiber, starch and beta glucans for use in the food industry. The 30 million gallons of ethanol that will be produced a year is considered a by product of the plant. Hamilton: "We've gone away from fermentation and gone into what is called gasification or pyrolysis. And what that does is it converts any carbonaceous material into a synthetic gas. It could be burned to generate power or it can be broken down into components and you can produce ethanol, butanol or propane just by changing the catalyst. It is more efficient and we don't have any waste." And Hamilton says unlike traditional ethanol plants the Treasure Valley facility will be able to operate at a profit without government biofuel subsidies if need be. He says the biorefinery can reach out to Pocatello in southern Idaho to Pendleton in Oregon to bring in the wheat and barley for the plant. The preferable varieties for this type of fractionation are waxy wheats and barleys. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.