When it comes to alternative fuel sources, ethanol has become a popular choice. North Carolina's first corn based ethanol plant opened earlier this year in Hoke County. The 100 million dollar plant in Raeford hopes to cash in on the biofuels market and in the process boost economic development in the region.
Most businesses spend a lot of time focused on sales and marketing strategies, but at Clean Burn Fuels they don't need fancy sales pitches--the market for ethanol is ready made. What they do focus on is production. And right now the plant can produce 60 million gallons a year.
Ethanol is a fuel additive made out of the starch from corn. The starch is converted to sugar and then fermented and distilled. A yeasty fermentation smell in the air gives you your first clue that this is a giant high tech moon shine operation. Ethanol is very similar to drinking alcohol but it's not intended for human consumption. Nontoxic, water soluble and biodegradable, it has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles by as much as 30 percent compared to fossil based fuels.
Today about 70 percent of all gasoline is blended with ethanol. All cars can run on E-10 gas which is 10 percent ethanol. Flex fuel vehicles can run on 85 percent ethanol. One acre of corn can produce enough ethanol to run a car 72,000 miles on E-10 unleaded gas.
Hoke county beat at three other locations for the ethanol plant. Plenty of land, a good water supply and rail access convinced Clean Burn Fuels to build in Raeford.
"When the idea came about to do Clean Burn we wanted to find strategic partners who were both going to invest in Hoke county and make Clean Burn the type of enterprise that was not only going to be a job creator itself but was going to bring other job creators along with it," said Kirk Bradley, Clean Burn Fuels Chairman of the Board.
Donald Porter, Executive Director of the Hoke County Economic Development Commission said what was once only a kernel of an idea several years ago has come to fruition. "It's summed up into three words jobs, jobs, jobs. Anytime you can create jobs and infrastructure for the county is just a great thing."
So far Clean Burn has created about 50 jobs with a commitment to eventually add 50 more. One of its strategic partners, Waccamaw Transport hired additional employees as a result of the new plant.
Waccamaw supplies the tanker trucks and drivers that distribute the ethanol. Waccamaw built a new maintenance and transport facility just down the road from Clean Burn Fuels.
"To put a new facility here we knew they're going to need a reliable transport partner on a long term basis who already had a lot of experience in it," said Danny Page, Vice President of Waccamaw Transport. "As Hoke County grows, we want to be there with them."
Corn is the key ingredient at the ethanol plant. About 45,000 bushels arrive every day with an estimated yearly consumption rate of 22 million bushels. Local farmers provide only about 4 million bushels. The rest must be shipped in from the Midwest. Plant Manager Jim Stewart sees that as an opportunity for local growers. "It gives them another market a competitive market for their grain and also it's a market for a feed ingredient in the area as well for co products."
There are two main co-products created during the ethanol production process: carbon dioxide and dried distiller's gain or DDG. Distiller’s grain is the fraction of the corn kernel that remains after the starch is converted to ethanol. Distiller's grain is made up of proteins, fat, vitamins and minerals found naturally in the corn kernel making it a valuable livestock and poultry feed. About 18 pounds of DDG are produced for each bushel of corn converted to ethanol.
"We will take 22 million bushels a year of corn and we will convert that to alcohol and we will give back to the feed people 7 or 8 million bushels of grain," explained Gregory Carlisle, Vice President of Clean Burn Fuels. "So we've had a net effect of about 14 million bushels but we’ve converted that to 60 million gallons of ethanol."
It's about a 60 hour turn from the time the corn is unloaded and hits the hammer mill. The corn is ground, cooked at 255 degrees where it's liquefied, from liquification it moves to fermentation and then to distillation. Computers monitor the equipment and lab technicians test the product at each critical juncture of the manufacturing process.
"We watch very closely the first 24 hours of our process with the fermentors because if we see something wrong in that period of the time we still have time to make a correction or to do something about it," explained Plant Manager Jim Stewart..
As America looks for ways to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, Clean Burn Fuels and Hoke County see more potential for the ethanol market. Don Porter said Hoke is one of the fastest growing counties in the state. "And of course anytime you can create jobs from an economic standpoint any job is a good job, but when you can create good paying jobs that are good for our local economy and good for our citizens."
Kirk Bradley added that the company hopes to see more co-investment in the project. "We also hope to increase the size of our plant. We plan to have Clean Burn be the gift that keeps on giving."
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