03/19/07 TVRR to break ground this spring

Look for ground to be broken this spring near Ontario where Treasure Valley Renewable Resources will build a 75 million dollar ethanol refinery. TVRR's John Hamilton says the permits are in hand, the land has been purchased for the facility that will annually produce 30 million gallons of ethanol. HAMILTON "It's designed to run wheat and barley at about 15 million bushels and we've also found that we can run milo, and we can run oats and we can run through it." Ethanol is really a byproduct for this plant Most biorefineries depend on fermentation but Treasure Valley Renewable will produce its ethanol through a process known as gasification. HAMILTON "In our premises it takes out the human food, the human ingredients like proteins and nutrasuticals and those starches that have high value and every thing else goes to the ethanol plant. 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 propanol." Hamilton says the wheat and barley for the plant will come from farms to the west in Pendleton, Baker City and LaGrande, Oregon and all across southern Idaho as far east as Pocatello. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott