Behind the Lines - June/July 2008

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Grain-based ethanol turned from an environmental darling to a pariah in a far shorter time than it took grain producers to put together capital and build a processing plant. A plant that is scheduled to come into production shortly was a natural place for us to go to illustrate a story about the future of ethanol.

Visiting an ethanol plant that is under construction can be an interesting experience, as Better Farming's photographer Rachel Lincoln found out at the Integrated Grain Processors Co-operative (IGPC) site in Aylmer recently.

The places where she could shoot photographs were greatly restricted.

"That's why we ended up shooting in the receiving area," says IGPC chairman and cash crop farmer Tom Cox. Some of the technology "is proprietary" to the designer, ICM of Colwich, Kan., and will be closed in before construction is completed. Cox describes ICM as the "leading designer" of ethanol plants in North America, it having been involved in about half of the facilities completed or currently under construction.

The plant is almost identical to the Suncor plant in Sarnia, designed by the same company. There have been significant changes in technology since the Chatham Commercial Alcohols (now Greenfield) plant was built in 1997, he says. The new plants scrub out the gases that had resulted in odour complaints a decade ago.

IGPC has received considerable capital startup assistance from federal and provincial governments to enable producers to bridge the gap to processing grains. The province kicked in $14 million, with 20 per cent per cent repayable to a research and development fund. The federal government has come up with monies twice, once with $11.9 million and again with another $3.9 million.

Cox says both "grants" are repayable, based upon profitability.

"It is a big challenge to raise the capital required to build a plant," Cox told Better Farming. Provincial and federal monies "helped."

Robert Irwin & Don Stoneman