Northwest Renewable trades corn-ethanol for biomass

Vancouver, Wash.-based Northwest Renewable said it plans to begin construction next year on a $72.5 million biomass power plant in Longview, Wash.

The news comes nearly three years after Northwest Renewable, owned by U.S. Ethanol, first broke ground on a proposed $100 million corn-ethanol production plant at the same 31-acre site. U.S. Ethanol is a subsidiary of Makad, which said it wanted to redesign the site to incorporate new technologies, according to The Daily News Online.

The corn-based ethanol market has taken a beating this year plants have been shuttered or underused (see Genomatica develops second biochemical from microbes). Meanwhile, ethanol leaders such as VeraSun, GreenFuel Technologies and White Energy have filed for bankruptcy (see Valero eyes cellulosic ethanol with $477M VeraSun buy and Off-grid and out of touch).

“With the collapse of the corn ethanol industry, they were looking at other opportunities to develop the site out there,” Longview City Manager Bob Gregory told The Daily News Online.

The proposed 24-megawatt biomass plant is expected to burn wood waste such as wood chips and hog fuel to generate steam, which would then drive a turbine to produce electricity. The company says it has not yet secured the feedstock for the plant but expects to create 70 jobs in logging and processing the wood products.

Northwest Renewable also plans to build a cellulosic ethanol plant alongside the biomass plant at a later date. However, the company has found it easier to access financing through bonds and federal stimulus money for the biomass facility, according to the newspaper.

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