by JOE CALLAHAN
Chief executive officer Jim Grey confirmed Friday that IGPC Ethanol Inc. of Aylmer Ontario has entered into an agreement with ICM, Inc. of Colwich Kansas to become the first Canadian adopter of ICM’s Generation 1.5 technology in the production of corn fiber cellulosic ethanol.
Grey says that implementing the agreement will be a roughly $30 million investment in what he describes as “bolt-on” technology (technology that is added to the existing facility). Grey says that the big advantage to the technology is that it is much less expensive than building a new plant that he estimates to be roughly $200 million.
Production from the modified facility will commence in mid-2015 at the plant in Aylmer.
The Generation 1.5™ technology will enable IGPC to remove the outer layer of the kernel of corn and convert it to ethanol whereas in the previous process this portion of the corn was diverted to its co-product, distiller’s grain that is sold as animal feed. Grey says that ethanol yields will increase by 10 per cent and that the co-product will have a higher protein content and be a better feed.
“This is a game-changer,” says Grey. “When you can effectively change your yield by 10 per cent, that’s enormous. It goes right to the bottom line.”
Grey says that ICM Inc. will play an important role in training IGPC’s staff at the U.S. facility.
IGPC Ethanol Inc. is wholly owned by Integrated Grain Processors Cooperative and has 700 to 800 members. It produces approximately 170 million liters of ethanol annually. BF
Comments
The real "game-changer" will be when the ethanol industry, and corn growers, finally realize that without subsidies and/or mandates, there would be arguably no demand, and/or no market, for ethanol at all - meaning that ethanol "yield" increases of 10%, are moot at best.
In addition, the other "game changer" the ethanol industry continues to studiously ignore, is the increase in US energy supplies in the past five years related to hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" which has resulted in the price of natural gas declining some 70% since 2008.
It is really kind of sad to see the ethanol industry still pretending it is still 2005, when people actually believed the nonsense about ethanol being a key component of US energy security, and the even-bigger whopper that ethanol is somehow all benefit, and no cost.
It's even worse to see the way Canadian ethanol proponents studiously ignore the fact that Canada is, at least until fracking destroys our market in the US, a net energy exporter.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
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