E. Ky. Company Hopes Beets Fuel Ethanol Project
CORBIN, Ky. (AP) – A biofuel company in eastern Kentucky is
hoping to build an ethanol plant that would use energy beets as
fuel instead of corn.
The Times-Tribune (http://bit.ly/NC7qDp) reports that Patriot
Bioenergy Corporation has more than 20 acres of energy beets
growing in Whitley County and CEO Roger Ford says the company
would use natural gas to spark the process to glean fuel from the
produce. Ford likened it to a distillery getting alcohol from
sugar.
Ethanol in the U.S. is usually corn-based, but Ford says the
energy beet is a good substitute.
“They’re phasing out the ethanol corn subsidy in America, and
after 30 years, it’s gone as far as it can go. Why energy beets?
First, it’s been selectively bred as a crop. We hope to produce
two crops a year. It’s such a high sugar yield crop, and we can
get on average 800-1,500 gallons an acre. We’ll need less land to
produce it in the spring and fall months. And second, there’s a
longer timeline in harvesting it. Once it comes in, it will
continue to grow. Processing the beets would use natural gas more
efficiently than with corn. We’ll get sugar directly from the
beets, and we won’t need an extra step to convert the starch from
corn into sugar. So that process is removed, and you shorten the
distillation time,” Ford told the newspaper in a phone interview
from Pikeville, where the company is based.
Ford said Patriot is considering a 99-acre plot in Williamsburg
for the plant.
Ethanol is used in the operation of flex-fuel vehicles. The
devices have engines that can run on any gasoline mix that
contains up to 85 percent ethanol.
Ford says more reliance on ethanol would mean less on oil, which
is mostly shipped from overseas.
“We have to think of the global impact. Anything we can do to
lessen our dependence on foreign oil is a big help to our nation.
We’ll never see cheap energy because it’s market-driven. But at
least we’ll create American energy with American jobs,” he
said.
The company is getting help from the University of Kentucky’s
Center for Applied Energy, which is studying a plot of energy
beets in Whitley County.
“They’ve taken some samples of the crop there, and they’re very
supportive on what we’re working on. They’ve done research on our
project, and they give us feedback on what we’re doing.”
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Information from: The Times-Tribune,
http://www.thetimestribune.com
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.)
