Ohio Jobs Through 21st Century Energy
by Jennifer on 12.04.2009
Today I had the remarkable experience of touring a new kind of biorefinery. Imagine taking ground up corn cobs, wood chips, weeds, ground up tree limbs, rice or wheat hulls and turning them into ready-to-use diesel fuel—without using combustion! That is what Red Lion Bio-Energy LLC has developed in Toledo, Ohio.
This $25 million bio-refinery near the University of Toledo’s Health Science Campus in South Toledo is receiving a $20 million federal grant. Today, it received the personal attention of the Obama administration with the visits of two cabinet secretaries to the plant, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (former governor of Iowa) and Energy Secretary Steven Chu (a Nobel Prize winner).
To the untrained eye, the inside of the plant looks a bit like a giant “still” with a lot of pipes, closed metal closed and colorful tubing, all carefully reflected in a large computer screen map to monitor the progress and stress testing of the system toward commercialization. To think that this elegantly simple process is just waiting for the thousands of farm operations in Ohio to turn their bio-waste into fuel is astounding.
This momentous confluence of federal stimulus funding and innovation is the result of the joint enterprise of Red Lion Bio-Energy LLC., of Toledo, the Renewable Energy Institute International and Pacific Renewable Fuels, both of Sacramento, California, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Toledo. The process has been developed in California and brought to Toledo through the efforts of Red Lion Bio-Energy LLC, headed by Alex Johnson.
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-11 Ohio) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have been strong proponents of this federal stimulus award. Congresswoman Kaptur spoke with conviction on this cold morning outside the plant before a myriad of cameras and reporters about what this means to Ohio. She recognized that this renewable clean energy enterprise is an effective example of “marrying” agriculture with industry, bringing the “rural to the urban.”
She emphasized that this plant, the first of its kind, will help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. With praise for the ingenuity and hard work of the plant’s innovators and the hard hatted workers standing behind her, she pointed out that Ohio is producing clean fuel with Ohio raw materials and Ohio workers. She spoke of the angst she feels each time she votes in favor of funding for more U.S. troops to fight in regions where oil is controlled or produced. The connection of renewable energy to long-elusive peace was evident with no further explanation.
An even bigger boon for Ohio is the program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture described by Secretary Vilsack for farmers to be eligible for $45 for each ton of bio-waste supplied to plants such as this one. Plants such as Red Lion’s can be located throughout Ohio with its 251 cities of 5000 or more in population, many dotting the rural landscape. The commercial success of this localized energy production depends on minimizing transportation costs of the raw materials for producing the diesel fuel. With Ohio having ranked 17th in agricultural receipts in the nation, this is a great fit for Ohio.
I met Alex Johnson, Red Lion’s president and co-founder, along with Doug Struble, a rather quiet-spoken young man who confidently and competently answered Secretary Chu’s many questions on the process for converting the biowaste to fuel, including the reuse of excess heat and energy to fuel the production process. Dennis Schuetzle, President of Renewable Energy Institution International, added that the reuse of energy at the processing plant will result in little use of outside electricity sources.
The President of the University of Toledo, Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, and Dean of the College of Engineering at UT, Dr. Nagi Naganathan, along with one of the engineering students who worked on the project, beamed as they saw the reactions of the many public officials there to support the first plant in the U.S. to produce road-ready diesel from organic waste.
Today’s grant will allow expansion and improvement of the plant to produce 350,000 gallons annually of no-sulfur, high-cetane diesel fuel. When compared to petroleum-based diesel fuel, the diesel fuel produced in Toledo will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 89 percent, with total pollution forecasted to be reduced by 40 percent. The potential for this “renewable, clean” diesel is to replace 74 percent of the petroleum diesel fuel now used in the U.S.
The groundbreaking phenomenon of this technology is that it breaks down biomass without combustion, making the production process more environmentally friendly. The process involves an oxygen-free vessel using high temperatures and steam, a process different from the soybean-based biodiesel production methods developed earlier by Mr. Johnson in Toledo, at Midwest Biorenewables.
Doug Struble commented that what has made Toledo so desirable for establishing this plant is ready access to skilled trades workers. With the strong presence and labor-management cooperation of the unionized building trades in Toledo, this is a good fit.
Today marked a turning point for the U.S. with 19 integrated biorefinery projects in 15 states receiving up to $564 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Combined with non-federal matching funds, this is a total investment of nearly $1.3 billion in jobs that move our country toward energy independence.
Ohio is proud to be among the innovators. Ohio was proud to welcome the historic visits of two U.S. cabinet secretaries. This is the role of government—to work for the betterment of people’s lives. Jobs are created with public-private partnerships like what I was privileged to be a part of today. The Red Lion endeavor is expected to create up to 100 new jobs immediately. Replicating this model throughout Ohio on the outskirts of our small and medium sized cities and in our rural areas will mean countless more jobs. And this is exactly what Ohio needs.