Construction works on Red River Biorefinery commences in North Dakota
Type of post: NEWS.
Although some construction activities already
had begun on site, BioMass Solution
LLC held the groundbreaking ceremony of the Red River Biorefinery on August
22 (see “Red
River Biorefinery breaks ground in North Dakota”, Ethanol Producer,
22/8/2018). The project was developed by the Wisconsin company in close
collaboration with Biotechnika.
Location
|
11-acre (4.5
ha) site in Grand Forks (North Dakota, USA).
|
Feedstocks
and processing capacity
|
500,000
tons of sugar beet tailings and potato and pasta processing waste.
BioMass
Solution has a long-term contract with:
- American
Crystal Sugar Co. (sugar beet cooperative).
- Simplot
(potato processor in Grand Forks).
- Philadelphia
Macaroni Co.
The plant
will operate year-round as at least one of the three feedstocks will be on
hand at all times. Pretreatment will vary slightly with each raw material.
|
Products
and production capacity
|
- 16.5
MMgy (62.5 Ml) of ethanol that will generate D3 and D5 RINs. It will be sent
to California where the Low Carbon Fuel Standard offsets transport costs,
making the market the most favorable.
- A wet
animal feed byproduct with higher protein than traditional DDGS. It will be
sold locally.
|
Technology
|
Sugar
beet processing technology developed by Biotechnika.
|
Construction
company
|
ICS.
|
Expected
start-up
|
2020.
|
Figure 1. Representatives from project partner
companies and organizations posed with hardhats and shovels at the
groundbreaking ceremony for Red River Biorefinery (Lisa Gibson, BBI
International).
The process is similar to that of the
corn-to-ethanol technology once the feedstock hits the fermentation step. The
feedstocks has a higher water content than corn, so hydrolysis and
pasteurization are different (including new enzymes for hydrolysis). The temperatures
and other process conditions also vary a bit. The overall size of the plant is
smaller than traditional US corn ethanol plants.
Jacek Chmielewski (principal of BioMass
Solution) and Tomasz Kapela (owner of Biotechnika) agreed that Red River
Biorefinery could become a model for other agricultural waste operations in USA.