More details on Georgia biofuels plant
From tree limbs to ethanol
Georgia hitches renewable-fuel wagon to pine trees
By DAN CHAPMAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/07
SOPERTON - Rural Georgia's economic salvation materialized Tuesday under a billowing white circus tent as politicians and businessmen extolled the renewable-fuel virtues of heretofore undesirable pine tree limbs.
Range Fuels Inc., one of the downstate's most significant industrial recruitment efforts, broke ground on an estimated $225 million factory that will turn wood waste into ethanol to fuel cars and trucks and, possibly, loosen U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
The brainchild and financial beneficiary of dot-com billionaire Vinod Khosla, Range plans to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year by end of 2008. If successful - and technological doubts abound - Khosla's factory promises to be the first commercially viable cellulosic ethanol factory in the United States, if not the world.
Down-beat Treutlen County is more than happy to be along for the ride. With little industry and much pine tree waste - it's not dubbed the Million Pines City for nothing - Soperton could use the jobs.
"Forestry is one of our main industries. We're right in the middle of miles and miles and miles of forest," said Hugh Beasley, a Treutlen County commissioner. "We're hoping and praying that (cellulosic) works, not only for us but for the whole country."
The nation's bio-fuel belt expanded Tuesday with Georgia joining the Midwest in the nation's alternative-fuel lexicon. Whereas the Midwest depends on ethanol made from corn, Georgia - with its 24 million acres of sustainable forests - will hitch its renewable-fuel wagon to pine trees.
Colorado-based Range hopes to eventually churn out 100 million gallons a year of ethanol. It will hire 70 people to work at the factory in an industrial park outside Soperton, about 155 miles southeast of Atlanta. Company officials said Range may build additional alt-fuel factories in Georgia.
"We need to declare a war on oil," said Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. "Corn ethanol started this war (but) as the war escalates we need better weapons. Cellulosic ethanol is the weapon we need."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who attended the ground-breaking and steered $76 million in federal money Range's way, said cellulosic ethanol has "more net energy than corn." Yet corn ethanol is commercially viable and can be purchased at E-85 pumps across the country, including one uncorked last week in Smyrna.
Ross Harding, a vice president with Herty Advanced Materials Development Center in Savannah, a state-funded development authority, said there are "drawbacks around the technical issues" involving cellulosic ethanol. (Venture capitalist Khosla said "we are confident it will work.")
Nonetheless, the timber-industry authority pledged $1 million last week to further bio-fuel development in Georgia. Herty's goal: boost the state's timber industry by $5 billion over the next 10 years via alternative fuels; double, to 120,000, the number of forest-industry jobs; and break ground on another 30 renewable-fuel factories.
"If we take just the surplus and waste (pine tree) material, we should be able to replace 20 percent of the state's fuel within 10 years," Harding said. Range Fuels "is the most exciting opportunity for the forest industry out there. It looks to me like the real deal."
Buffeted by foreign competition and the housing slump, the forest-products industry could use some help. At its peak, in 2001, the logging, pulp, paper and woodworking industries accounted for $30.5 billion in total economic impact to the state of Georgia, according to a Georgia Tech study.
The impact dipped to $25 billion last year.
Range, and its renewable-fuel brethren, could transform rural Georgia into "a bio-based economy," said Gov. Sonny Perdue.
"It is significant that our state will be on the forefront of resolving (the) energy crisis," Perdue told hundreds of state and local dignitaries, including two tiara-topped beauty queens. "Range fuels represents a new future for our country. With Georgia's vast, sustainable and renewable forests, we will lead the nation."
More on ajc.com
Georgia hitches renewable-fuel wagon to pine trees
By DAN CHAPMAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/07
SOPERTON - Rural Georgia's economic salvation materialized Tuesday under a billowing white circus tent as politicians and businessmen extolled the renewable-fuel virtues of heretofore undesirable pine tree limbs.
Range Fuels Inc., one of the downstate's most significant industrial recruitment efforts, broke ground on an estimated $225 million factory that will turn wood waste into ethanol to fuel cars and trucks and, possibly, loosen U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
The brainchild and financial beneficiary of dot-com billionaire Vinod Khosla, Range plans to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year by end of 2008. If successful - and technological doubts abound - Khosla's factory promises to be the first commercially viable cellulosic ethanol factory in the United States, if not the world.
Down-beat Treutlen County is more than happy to be along for the ride. With little industry and much pine tree waste - it's not dubbed the Million Pines City for nothing - Soperton could use the jobs.
"Forestry is one of our main industries. We're right in the middle of miles and miles and miles of forest," said Hugh Beasley, a Treutlen County commissioner. "We're hoping and praying that (cellulosic) works, not only for us but for the whole country."
The nation's bio-fuel belt expanded Tuesday with Georgia joining the Midwest in the nation's alternative-fuel lexicon. Whereas the Midwest depends on ethanol made from corn, Georgia - with its 24 million acres of sustainable forests - will hitch its renewable-fuel wagon to pine trees.
Colorado-based Range hopes to eventually churn out 100 million gallons a year of ethanol. It will hire 70 people to work at the factory in an industrial park outside Soperton, about 155 miles southeast of Atlanta. Company officials said Range may build additional alt-fuel factories in Georgia.
"We need to declare a war on oil," said Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. "Corn ethanol started this war (but) as the war escalates we need better weapons. Cellulosic ethanol is the weapon we need."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who attended the ground-breaking and steered $76 million in federal money Range's way, said cellulosic ethanol has "more net energy than corn." Yet corn ethanol is commercially viable and can be purchased at E-85 pumps across the country, including one uncorked last week in Smyrna.
Ross Harding, a vice president with Herty Advanced Materials Development Center in Savannah, a state-funded development authority, said there are "drawbacks around the technical issues" involving cellulosic ethanol. (Venture capitalist Khosla said "we are confident it will work.")
Nonetheless, the timber-industry authority pledged $1 million last week to further bio-fuel development in Georgia. Herty's goal: boost the state's timber industry by $5 billion over the next 10 years via alternative fuels; double, to 120,000, the number of forest-industry jobs; and break ground on another 30 renewable-fuel factories.
"If we take just the surplus and waste (pine tree) material, we should be able to replace 20 percent of the state's fuel within 10 years," Harding said. Range Fuels "is the most exciting opportunity for the forest industry out there. It looks to me like the real deal."
Buffeted by foreign competition and the housing slump, the forest-products industry could use some help. At its peak, in 2001, the logging, pulp, paper and woodworking industries accounted for $30.5 billion in total economic impact to the state of Georgia, according to a Georgia Tech study.
The impact dipped to $25 billion last year.
Range, and its renewable-fuel brethren, could transform rural Georgia into "a bio-based economy," said Gov. Sonny Perdue.
"It is significant that our state will be on the forefront of resolving (the) energy crisis," Perdue told hundreds of state and local dignitaries, including two tiara-topped beauty queens. "Range fuels represents a new future for our country. With Georgia's vast, sustainable and renewable forests, we will lead the nation."
More on ajc.com
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Well, the plant is starting off with $76 million off of the Federal titty, and the technology is not down pat yet.
Will this just be another Federal boondoggle?
I can assure you, the lower 2/3 of the State of Georgia is nothing but pine tree farms, I mean, it is not unusual to see a 2,000 acre pine tree farm.
If they can make this work Georgia will be the new Saudi Arabia.0 -
quote:wood waste No such thing. Pretty much every part of the tree except the branches and leaves are being used now by the lumber industry. All this will do is drive the cost of wood waste up, increasing the cost of lumber and making the cost benifit ratio for the fuel a negative causing the plant to shut down. 0 -
Cornohol cost more than gas. Brazil uses bio-mass and is cheaper. What does Brazil use? 0 -
Government subsidies.
Doug0 -
Brazil uses sugar cane.
If we can just figure out how to grow sugar cane in Iowa, we are set.0 -
Don't we consume something like 20million gallons a day? Gonna take a lot of pine trees to off-set that. 0 -
all depends on what the industry is cutting the wood for.here most everything is chipped and made into osb etc. not much big trees left........ 0
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