The EPA has just proposed doubling the threshold for
small coal powered facilities like ethanol plants
before they are considered a "major source" and
require big time pollution controls.

--- Jane Clark <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> The Christian Science Monitor
> March 23, 2006
> 
> Carbon Cloud Over a Green Fuel
> 
> An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300
> tons of coal a day to
> make ethanol.
> 
> By Mark Clayton
> 
> Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began
> pumping out a stream of
> ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable
> fuel of the future.
> 
> There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300
> tons of coal a day to turn
> corn into ethanol -- the first US plant of its kind
> to use coal instead of
> cleaner natural gas.
> 
> An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired
> ethanol plant is under
> construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other
> such refineries are being
> built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
> 
> The trend, which is expected to continue, has left
> even some ethanol
> boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become
> a standard for 30 to 40
> ethanol plants under construction -- and 150 others
> on the drawing boards -- 
> it would undermine the environmental reasoning for
> switching to ethanol in
> the first place, environmentalists say.
> 
> "If the biofuels industry is going to depend on
> coal, and these conversion
> plants release their CO2 to the air, it could undo
> the global warming
> benefits of using ethanol," says David Hawkins,
> climate director for the
> Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.
> 
> The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural
> gas has long been the
> ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural
> gas prices soaring, talk
> of coal power for new ethanol plants and
> retrofitting existing refineries
> for coal is growing, observers say.
> 
> "It just made great economic sense to use coal,"
> says Brad Davis, general
> manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages
> the Corn LP plant, which
> is farmer and investor owned. "Clean coal"
> technology, he adds, helps the
> Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits --
> and coal power saves
> millions in fuel costs.
> 
> Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery
> contains as much as double
> the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural
> gas, climate experts say.
> So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the
> "clean, renewable fuel"
> the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to
> call it?
> 
> Such questions arrive amid boom times for America's
> ethanol industry.
> 
> With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4
> billion gallons of ethanol,
> the industry expects to double over the next six
> years by adding another 4.4
> billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as
> well as concerns about
> energy security, the environment, and higher
> gasoline prices are all driving
> ethanol forward.
> 
> The Goldfield refinery, and the other four
> coal-fired ethanol plants under
> construction are called "dry mill" operations,
> because of the process they
> use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few
> much larger "wet mill"
> operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other
> products. But dry mills
> are the wave of the future, industry experts say.
> It's their shift to coal
> that's causing the concern.
> 
> More plants slated for Midwest, West
> 
> Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected
> to be built across the
> Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many
> could soon be burning
> coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol,
> industry analysts say.
> 
> "It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of
> choice for most of these new
> ethanol plants," says Robert McIlvaine, president of
> a Northfield, Ill.,
> information services company that has compiled a
> database of nearly 200
> ethanol plants now under construction or in planning
> and development.
> 
> If all 190 plants on Mr. McIlvaine's list were built
> and used coal,
> motorists would not reduce America's greenhouse gas
> emissions, according to
> an in-depth analysis of the subject to date by
> scientists at University of
> California at Berkeley, published in Science
> magazine in January.
> 
> Of course, many coal-fired ethanol plants on the
> drawing board will not be
> built, Mr. McIlvaine says. Others in planning for
> years may still choose
> natural gas as fuel to meet air pollution
> requirements in some states.
> 
> Other variations on ethanol-coal are emerging in
> Goodland, Kan., and
> Underwood, N.D., where ethanol plants are being
> built next to coal-burning
> power plants to use waste heat. Efficient, but still
> coal.
> 
> That could spell trouble for ethanol's renewable
> image.
> 
> "If your goal is to reduce costs, then coal is a
> good idea," says Robert
> Brown, director of Iowa State University's office of
> biorenewables. "If the
> goal is a renewable fuel, coal is a bad idea. When
> greenhouse-gas emissions
> go up, environmentalists take note. Then you've got
> a problem."
> 
> Ethanol industry officials say coal-power is just
> one possibility the
> industry is pursuing.
> 
> "I think some in the environmental community won't
> be all that warm and
> fuzzy about [coal-fired ethanol]," says Bob Dinneen,
> president of the
> Renewable Fuels Association, the national trade
> association for the US
> fuel-ethanol industry. "It's fair to say there's a
> trend away from natural
> gas, but coal is just one approach. Other
> technologies are part of the mix,
> too."
> 
> He cites, for instance, a new ethanol plant in
> Nebraska strategically
> located by a feed lot, using methane from cattle
> waste to fire ethanol
> boilers. Another new plant in Minnesota uses biomass
> gasification, using
> plant material as its fuel.
> 
> Coal for now, wood in the future
> 
> Coal may end up being merely a transitional fuel in
> the run-up to cellulosic
> ethanol, including switch grass and wood, says
> another RFA spokesman. While
> ethanol production today primarily uses only the
> corn kernel, cellulosic
> will use the whole plant.
> 
> Cellulosic ethanol, mentioned by President Bush in
> his State of the Union
> speech, could turn the tide on coal, too, by burning
> plant dregs in the
> boiler with no need for coal at all.
> 
> "It's a fact that ethanol is a renewable fuel today
> and it will stay that
> way," says Matt Hartwig, an RFA spokesman. "Any
> greenhouse-gas emissions
> that come out the tailpipe are recycled by the corn
> plant. I don't expect
> the limited number of coal-fired plants out there to
> change that."
> 
> Still, Hawkins insists that if ethanol is made using
> coal, 
=== message truncated ===


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