The Bulletin, Bend / Central Oregon News
SEPTEMBER 09, 2010 04:34 AM
bendbulletin.com/Jefferson County
Bulletin E-Edition:
Rex Barber Jr. holds wheat Thursday from his farm and a homemade still, both produced at Big Falls Ranch Co. in Culver. He plans to convert ground wheat into ethanol that he would mix with petroleum to fuel his vehicles. Ethanol could potentially save him about $3,000 in fuel costs this year, he said.
Anthony Dimaano / The Bulletin
Ethanol experiments
'Explosion of ideas' emerging among farmers in region
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: April 15. 2007 4:00AM PSTCULVER - Ethanol production could provide additional revenues for Central Oregon's agricultural and wood products industries and a renewable fuel source for its consumers, but the technology that would combine crops and wood waste into ethanol is still a few years away, ag industry leaders say.
There's been an "explosion of ideas" from growers statewide in starting biofuel production, said Bruce Pokarney, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Statewide, several projects are in the works that are expected to increase ethanol production by millions of gallons per year, including a project in Boardman, east of The Dalles, that is set to go online with corn-based ethanol this summer.
"Producers are looking at this as a possible way to make more money," Pokarney said. "They're looking at producing a crop for fuel production rather than food production as a way of staying in business."
At least one farmer in Culver is using a homemade still to convert some of his wheat crop into ethanol that he says will reduce his fuel costs, which amounted to $13,000 last year.
Rex Barber Jr., owner of Big Falls Ranch Co. in Culver, hopes to save about $3,000 this year by producing ethanol to fuel his vehicles. He's still working on the cooking and fermentation process that converts a portion of his ground wheat into ethanol. But he could begin selling it locally on a larger scale if it works, he said.
It's a small-scale example of how Central Oregon farmers could benefit from rising fuel costs for petroleum-based fuels, said Brian Duggan, an Oregon State University crop physiologist at the Central Oregon Agricultural Research Center in Madras.
"We could see a more localized production of ethanol," said Duggan, who is requesting federal grants to develop technology for one or many ethanol stills that would utilize multiple crops and wood waste to produce the alternative fuel source.
Duggan's research will determine whether it would be most cost effective to develop one large regional still, a few throughout the region or several located near farms or sawmills, he said.
Throughout the state, companies are taking advantage of tax incentives and stricter fuel standards to develop new renewable energy projects, said Warren Shoemaker, a biofuels consultant based in Oregon City.
House Bill 2210, expected to pass the Oregon Senate this week, would create tax incentives for farmers who grow renewable energy crops. The bill also would enact a renewable fuel standard that would require 10 percent of gasoline to be derived from ethanol, Shoemaker said.
The Senate also is expected to pass House Bill 2211, which would raise tax credits available for capital construction of renewable energy systems under the Business Energy Tax Credit program from 35 percent to 50 percent, Shoemaker said.
Construction will conclude this summer on the corn-based ethanol plant in Boardman, which is expected to produce about 35 million gallons of ethanol per year, according to Sacramento, Calif.-based Pacific Ethanol Inc.'s Web site.
Although Midwest farmers would produce the bulk of the corn for the Boardman plant initially, Pacific Northwest farmers also are being encouraged to grow the crop, which produces a byproduct that can be used in feedstock, Shoemaker said.
An Ontario, Ore.-based company, Treasure Valley Renewable Resources LLC, plans to break ground this spring on a $70 million facility that would use wheat and barley to produce both food and ethanol, said John Hamilton, manager of Treasure Valley Renewable Resources.
"It's a different model than the typical corn plant," Hamilton said. "It would mill the grain and take out the ethanol byproduct."
The plant would produce about 30 million gallons of ethanol each year after it is completed in 12 to 16 months, Hamilton said.
The ethanol would be sold to companies in Colorado and Utah, where retail distribution outlets already exist, Hamilton said.
A Klamath Falls-based company plans to use the potato and sugar beet crops from local farmers in its combined ethanol and biodiesel plant, said Eric Anderson, CEO of Evergreen Biofuels of America Inc.
The company is raising $6.5 million in state and federal grants, loans and private investment to retrofit an old chemical plant into a biodiesel and ethanol production facility, he said.
Evergreen Biofuels would then sell the fuel to gas stations and distributors throughout the Pacific Northwest and Southern California, Anderson said.
"It's a tried-and-true technology that is no different than the technology used in corn(-based) ethanol plants, except we're using sugar beets and potatoes," he said. "The result is ethanol fuel."
The plant would create a local market for farmers to sell their crops minus shipping costs, which cut into profits for both ethanol producers and farmers, Anderson said.
New technology would, however, be needed to convert wood waste, hay or other cellulosic plant materials into ethanol, Central Oregon's ag researcher said.
Duggan's research would look for ways to develop small, farm-size stills that would convert crops that could be grown locally such as sugar beets, which Central Oregon farmers grew until about five years ago, and wheat and barley. Additionally, he would find ways to convert the stems of wheat stalks or sawdust into ethanol.
"The next step is, can we make it from cellulose?" he said. "There's a lot of stuff that is discarded or burned. The question is can we make it into ethanol?"
Central Oregon farmers would compete with the larger ethanol plants by selling locally and by using products they already produce or products that otherwise would not be used, Duggan said.
He could not say how many stills would be needed and where they would be built.
"It's not a viable commercial operation yet," Duggan said. "We're still identifying the process. But hopefully within the next few years, we should be able to do small-scale stills that farmers or wood mills could buy. They could use crops and forestry waste to produce ethanol."
In the meantime, Barber, the Culver farmer, said he would convert some of his wheat crop into ethanol using a simpler technology - the homemade still.
"I want to see how it works - how efficient, time-consuming and expensive it is to see if it is worth doing," Barber said.
Jeff McDonald can be reached at 383-0323 or at jmcdonald@bendbulletin.com.
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