Oct 23 2007
GS CleanTech Corporation today announced its execution of an agreement with Northeast Biofuels, LP, to extract about 10 million gallons per year of crude corn oil from the distillers grain co-product from NEB’s new 114 million gallon per year dry mill ethanol plant scheduled to commence operations later this year.
NEB is building its ethanol facility on the site of a former brewery at the 420-acre Riverview Business Park in Volney, NY, about 25 miles north of Syracuse. When the plant opens, it will annually produce 114 million gallons of corn ethanol and become the first large scale operating ethanol plant in New York State and the Northeast.
NEB and its on-site project participants, BOC Gases, and now GS CleanTech, will directly and indirectly employ approximately 100 workers, with an estimated 1,500-plus “spin-off jobs” created in agriculture, transportation and other sectors of the Upstate New York economy. Because of its strategic Upstate New York location, NEB will have low cost access to markets representing more than 2.3 billion gallons of potential ethanol demand in the Northeast US and Eastern Canada.
GS CleanTech’s patent-pending Corn Oil Extraction Systems™ have been engineered to help ethanol producers increase cash flows through the introduction of a third and novel revenue stream – corn oil. GS CleanTech provides turn-key extraction systems to participating ethanol producers at no cost to the ethanol producers in return for the long-term right to purchase the extracted corn oil at a per pound premium to its value when trapped in the distiller’s grains. GS CleanTech’s extraction technology also reduces overall plant emissions and utility costs by upwards of $1 million per year for a 100 million gallon per year ethanol plant that dries 100% of its distiller’s grains.
David Winsness, GS CleanTech’s President and Chief Executive Officer said that “This is a very strategic project for us and we are thrilled to bring our technology to what is on target to be the first major bio-refinery in the Northeastern U.S. NEB’s leadership is proactive and they clearly recognize the need to use technology today to defray risk. The best way to do this is to implement “plug and play” technologies that enhance the yields and operating efficiencies of the traditional ethanol production process. Our corn oil extraction technology is the first of several technologies that meet that goal that we are bringing to market to meet that objective.”
GS CleanTech has commenced work on the NEB extraction systems and is targeting an early 2008 commissioning.
Doug MacKenzie, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Permolex International, L.P., added: “We completed extensive technical due diligence on GS CleanTech’s technology and we are convinced that it is a very reliable way to increase ethanol producer revenues. We are excited to work with GS CleanTech and look forward to being the first ethanol producers in the country to use their full extraction package.”
GS CleanTech’s affiliated fuel production company, GS AgriFuels Corporation, previously announced its intention to finance, build and operate a 10 million gallon per year biodiesel facility adjacent to the NEB facility. This facility will be designed to convert corn oil into biodiesel, which GS AgriFuels intends to sell locally in New York. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (“NYSERDA”) previously awarded a $250,000 grant to support the construction of this biodiesel production facility.
GS CleanTech and GS AgriFuels have partnered in the full scale commercialization of their technologies. GS CleanTech provides technology-centric services in return for process engineering and plant construction sales, ongoing technology royalties and selected feedstock sales. GS AgriFuels provides all of the capital for the construction of the extraction and biodiesel production facilities and generates revenues through its ownership of the biodiesel production assets.
Focus on Ethanol Production
GS CleanTech is focused on delivering technologies and process innovations to the ethanol production industry with a view towards maximizing the yield of corn-based ethanol production. GS CleanTech's currently available offerings in its ethanol program include its:
- Corn oil extraction systems;
- Small-scale modular biodiesel production systems; and,
- Biomass gasification for combined heat and power solutions.
GS CleanTech is also developing new technologies, such as its carbon dioxide algal bioreactor technology, for application at ethanol facilities.
Traditional ethanol processing converts each bushel of corn, which weighs about 54 pounds, into about 18 pounds of ethanol, 18 pounds of carbon dioxide, and 18 pounds of distillers dried grains, which contain about 2 pounds of fat. This corresponds to about 2.8 gallons of fuel production per bushel of corn. GS CleanTech's ambition is to increase this efficiency as much as possible by converting as co-products such as DDG and carbon dioxide into additional renewable fuels.
Pictures of a recent GS CleanTech corn oil extraction system installation can be found at http://www.gs-cleantech.com in the Multimedia & Downloads section of the Products & Services section for GS CleanTech’s Corn Oil Extraction Systems (http://www.gs-cleantech.com/product_desc.php?mode=1&media=true).
http://www.gs-cleantech.com