Fueling Up

The Southeast’s largest ethanol plant moves toward completion in Georgia

By Debra Wood

Envisioning a future in which America relies on renewable energy, First United Ethanol LLC, or FUEL, is constructing a $185-million, 100-million-gallon dry mill ethanol facility near Camilla, in Mitchell County, Ga.

“We are going to put about $200 million in the economy with the building of the facility and [create] about 35 to 45 direct jobs and 200 indirect jobs, and that’s a good thing for any part of Georgia,” says Jill Stuckey, director of alternative fuels for the state of Georgia.

“The scope is bigger than what most people realize,” adds Drew Gahagan, general manager for FUEL. “People are surprised to see something so sophisticated in our small, rural community.”

FUEL anticipates the plant will convert 36 million bushels of corn annually into denatured alcohol, or ethanol, through a fermentation process, which also will yield saleable byproducts.

Stuckey credits FUEL’s progress, compared to other projects that have not made it out of planning, to its ability to market the byproducts and that it locked in corn prices before the recent increases and secured rail service.

Nick Bowdish, director of marketing for Fagen, adds that in the last few years the Southeast has expanded the potential for blending 10% ethanol with 90% gasoline. The plant places the manufacturing of ethanol closer to the end user rather than the corn.

The project has proceeded primarily with private funding. More than 850 people, 75% from Southwest Georgia and North Florida, invested from $20,000 to $2 million in FUEL. The state of Georgia provided $500,000 in public road improvements and a construction sales tax credit, estimated by Stuckey to save the company several million dollars. The Mitchell County Development Authority issued tax-exempt and taxable bonds for the project.

The plant

Corn will come into the FUEL facility and denatured ethanol and the co-products will be transported out via truck and a closed-loop rail line, which ties into a spur that connects to Norfolk Southern and CSX lines.

advertisement

The arriving corn will be deposited in five concrete silos in the receiving building, each 150 ft tall by 70 ft in diameter and with 500,000-bushel capacity. The departing grain to be used by distillers will be placed in two concrete silos in a separate building.

FUEL will grind the corn, after which it is fed into seven 800,000-gallon fermentation tanks for the yeast-based, anaerobic process. This process yields a “beer” that is about 10% alcohol and 90% water. A vacuum distillation system will separate out the alcohol, which will be sold to gas producers, from the solids.

The solid corn mash is pumped into centrifuges for dewatering and dried, so the resulting distillers grain can be sold as an animal feed supplement. In addition, carbon dioxide gas that is given off by the yeast during fermentation can be sold to a third party for purification and sale to industry.

Construction activity

Fagen of Granite Fall, Minn., received the $125.9 million design-build contract in November 2006. The company can earn $20,000 per day up to $1 million for early completion, according to FUEL filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is the first destination ethanol plant Fagen has built in the Southeast, Bowdish says.

Construction began in January 2007. Folsom Construction of Cordele, Ga., completed the $5.8 million site package, which entailed leveling the 267-acre site before Fagen could begin construction.

“Adapting the site was a massive effort,” Gahagan says. “We also put in the rail system.”

RailWorks Track Systems of New York is laying the 1.25 mi of track. Total cost of the rail construction, including materials, is $4.8 million.

Fagen began construction in March 2007. The project includes seven structural-steel buildings on reinforced-concrete foundations, all of which are built; a four-cell cooling tower; piping; instrumentation; and electrical work. The buildings total 86,125 sq ft.

As a subcontractor to Fagen, Hunt Construction Co. of Valdosta, Ga., built the 100- by 90-ft receiving building and the 150- by 100-ft distillers grain building. Dan Deaver, general manager of construction for Hunt, says unique features include a basement for rail-car deliveries in the receiving building and a ring-footing foundation in the distillers grain building.

“The concrete work in the receiving building is fairly complex,” Deaver says. “The walls in some places are 18 in. thick, with special support points for the rail scale.”

The energy center building contains two dryer trains and two thermal oxidizers for pollution control. The dryers use natural gas. From there, the distillers grain moves to a flat storage building, where it will rest for one day before being transported to the silos at the distillers grain storage building.

Water used in fermentation will be treated at an onsite water treatment facility, which removes any impurities from the well water. The process is zero discharge. All of the water that comes in contact with the corn is recycled.

The only water that is discharged is used in cooling the plant or does not come in contact with the corn. The manufacturing process of producing a gallon of ethanol uses about one tenth of the water required to produce a gallon of gasoline, Bowdish says. The water storage tank serves a dual purpose as part of the fire-protection system.

FUEL hired Hunt to construct a corn-drying system that will allow the facility to purchase local corn and let it dry before being placed in the silos. The company is installing a 150-ft-tall GSI tower dryer.

Useful Sources

First United Ethanol LLC or FUEL
http://www.firstunitedethanol.com/

Project Team:
Owner: First United Ethanol, LLC,
Design-Build Contractor: Fagen, Granite Falls, Minn.
Site Contractor: Folsom Construction Co., Cordele, Ga.
Corn Drying Facility: Hunt Construction Co., Valdosta, Ga.