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Non-Tech : $2 or higher gas - Can ethanol make a comeback? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: richardred who wrote (994)	4/8/2006 1:00:36 AM
From: richardred	Respond to of 2801

Company proposes Ore. ethanol site By DEAN BRICKEY East Oregonian, Pendleton BOARDMAN, Ore. – Pacific Ethanol Inc. hopes to produce fuel at the Port of Morrow by the summer of 2007. Tom Koehler, vice president of the Portland company, said Pacific Ethanol intends to produce about 35 million gallons a year of ethanol, or grain alcohol, from corn. The company has an option to lease 25 acres near the port’s new rail loop and plans to buy corn from Midwest and local growers, he said. The plant will employ 30 to 40 people. The two main byproducts, livestock feed and carbon dioxide, will be sold. Koehler and his brother, Paul, hope to market the feed to nearby dairies and the gas to beverage makers. Paul Koehler said they chose the Port of Morrow because of its location, which is close to river, rail and highway transportation, and because it’s close to a market for the feed grain byproduct. “We hope to begin construction on this as soon as we get all of our permits,” Tom Koehler said at a state Department of Energy meeting at the port. He said contractors would need a year to build the plant. Adam Bless, lead reviewer for the state agency, said Pacific Ethanol is the first company to file a notice of intent to apply for a ethanol site certificate in Oregon. Two others have obtained exemptions from the process, however, including Oregon Ethanol, which also plans to build at the Port of Morrow. The other company is building near Ontario. Bless said Oregon Ethanol qualified for the exemption because it is a smaller operation and intends to ship 90 percent of its product by rail or barge. Pacific Ethanol, however, is intending to apply for a site certificate because it intends to produce more fuel and ship more than 10 percent of it by truck. A site certificate, Bless said, is like a one-stop permit that includes permission from several state agencies. It includes everything except an air-quality permit from the state Department of Environmental Quality, which the developers must apply for separately. “Getting a site certificate is like getting a building permit from the county,” he said. The public meeting on Pacific Ethanol’s notice of intent is part of the first of two steps in the permitting process, Bless said. The Department of Energy is accepting public comment on the notice of intent through April 7. “In a few months, the Koehlers will apply for a site certificate,” Bless said. That will result in the Energy Department issuing a draft order and conducting public hearings before issuing the site certificate. capitalpress.info