| BUFFALO LAKE, Minn. -- A factory-scale test is under way in
Minnesota to determine whether beet sugar can be added to corn-based
ethanol dry mill plant -- without displacing the corn grind.
Edward Wene, a microbiologist, with the Agricultural Utilization
Research Institute in Crookston, said small amounts of sugar were added to
the corn grind at the Minnesota Energy plant at Buffalo Lake, south of
Willmar, Minn., last week. Test results will be public and should be
available in the next two weeks.
"People have been wondering if this extra beet sugar could just be
added (to the process) and have the corn mills continue to use their
normal amount of corn," Wene said. "Just add in extra sugar and
everyone would be happy.
"That's a possibility, but some of that depends on how much of
this sugar is going to be available, and if it's going to be available at
the right price."
The sugar-to-ethanol question came up earlier this summer when it
became clear that the U.S. Department of Agriculture might take possession
of potentially forfeited sugar that is used as collateral by processors.
Nationwide, sugar industry analysts recently recently have estimated
that 375,000 to 450,000 tons of sugar might be forfeited to the government
by the end of September.
Wene said leaders of the Red River Valley Sugar Beet Growers
Association and the American Coalition for Ethanol approached AURI to
conduct experiments that might offer a base of knowledge on the
feasibility of using sugar in ethanol plants.
Wene said he did not know why the Buffalo Lake plant was selected for
the process among Minnesota's dry milling plants. Further, Wene did not
know why Minnesota Corn Processors of Marshall, Minn., the state's only
wet milling ethanol producer, wasn't selected.
Sugar could be used 100 percent in a wet mill process, he acknowledged,
while it could not in a dry mill.
Initially, Wene contacted technical people at Broin & Associates of
Sioux Falls, S.D., which designs and runs many of the region's corn dry
milling plants, and offers ethanol marketing help.
After encouraging results from those lab tests, Wene went to the large
scale, using a 50,000-pound truckload of sugar in fermenter runs at
Buffalo Lake. Wene said the experiments added 1, 2 and 3 percent refined
sugar into a mix with corn sugar.
A bushel of corn at 55 pounds produces about 38.5 pounds of corn
sweetener, Wene said.
Obviously sugar is the starting material for making ethanol fermentation,
Wene said.
"It's probably pretty well understood that refined sugar is not
really ever going to be in competition with" corn, Wene said, adding,
"if you're going to make ethanol from sugar beets you certainly
wouldn't crystalize the sugar, dry it and bag it. You wouldn't go through
the purifying and refining process that table sugar goes through. You'd
take the raw beet juice and ferment that directly to ethanol. I'm not
suggesting that's a possibility.
"This is looking more at a one-time event here, not a process
that's likely to be used at any other time."
The reason for the experimenting is to provide some answers up front,
according to Wene.
"This is to give the government an idea of what they can do with
sugar, rather than discounting it or dumping it in the ocean," he
said.
Issues of how, when and where sugar becomes available would figure into
whether it'll be used, Wene said.
Ethanol plants also would need equipment to handle the sugar, or
determine if modifications are worth the cost for what may be a one-time
program. |