Add “energy beets” to the cash crop list for Kentucky farmers. The high-sugar energy beet, a variety bred to serve the fuel/energy market, is now growing on test plots in Whitley and other Kentucky counties. Kentucky-based Patriot Bio-Energy Corporation plans to use them to boost agriculture and help bring U.S. independence from foreign oil. Patriot’s vision also aims to bring biomass to electricity generation.
However, the first target for the company, which has offices in Pikeville, Lexington and Williamsburg, is the ethanol market.
Currently ethanol in the United States is mostly corn-based. Some industry analysts see beets as a good alternative. Holly Jessen, writing for Ethanol Producer Magazine (April 11), reported that “energy beets have the power to produce about double the amount of ethanol in one acre, when compared to corn,” according to one of the experts she interviewed.
Roger Ford, CEO of Patriot, said that the company’s system would rely on natural gas, as corn ethanol does, to drive the process — basically a distillery yielding alcohol from the sugar. He said that processing beets would use natural gas more efficiently than the corn process. The beets yield sugar directly, whereas corn requires an extra processing step to convert starch to sugar.
“We also plan to eventually control costs in operations by using biomass to provide power and heat for the plant operations,” said Ford, “which will enable us to have an avoided cost as we go forward.”
Greater ethanol use in the United States has been noted as a possible means for strengthening national security by breaking addiction to foreign oil, realizing economic advantages in international trade balance, and bringing prosperity to rural agricultural areas. Flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs), cars or trucks with engines that run on any mix of gasoline with up to 85 percent ethanol, can ride through turbulent oil prices with the high ethanol content, becoming more economically attractive as oil prices rise.
Automobile manufacturers have responded to the growing interest in flex-fuel vehicles. According to a spokesman with EthanolRetailer.com, there are currently more than 10 million FFVs on U.S. roads, based on 2011 figures of newly registered FFVs. EthanolRetailer also reports that the three major U.S. automobile manufacturers, Ford, GM and Chrysler, have committed to having 50 percent of their vehicles as FFVs by the end of 2012.
Toyota Manufacturing in Georgetown, Ky., in a statement to Business Lexington, said, “Toyota strongly supports the development of alternative fuels to help reduce dependence on foreign oil and potentially reduce vehicle emissions.” The company is gauging consumer interest with the Tundra and Sequoia, available as FFVs. They also noted that their hybrids, their core technology, in the future could be combined with any alternative fuel to maximize efficiency.
Of course, an issue facing flex-fuel vehicles is the availability of high ethanol fuel. A fuel mixture called E85 combines 85 percent ethanol with 15 percent gasoline. According to figures at e85refueling.com, there are currently 2,466 E85 pump locations spread across 46 states. There are 19 gas stations located within 200 miles of Lexington offering e85. The Thornton’s at 2291 Elkhorn Drive is currently the only station in Lexington with an E85 pump.
Beyond ethanol, Patriot’s plans include the construction of biomass power plants, following sometime after the establishment of the ethanol-producing operations.
“We’re looking at 10- to 15-megawatt facilities,” Ford said. “We could go as small as 5 megawatts.”
Ford said in addition to running the ethanol production operations, electricity could be sold to utility companies. He said he’s been engaged in preliminary discussions with utilities.
Energy beets are well established in Europe for ethanol and methane production.
“The company we are partnering with on beets is BetaSeed,” said Ford. “It’s the wholly-owned subsidiary of KWS, a German company. They’re beet experts.”
Steve Libsack, director of business development with Betaseed, said that globally Betaseed is a leading supplier of energy beets and the only one in North America. He said trials are ongoing across North America.
Libsack points to certain advantages offered by energy beets. He states, as a rough approximation, that for every unit of energy you put into making ethanol with sugar beets, you get 10 units of energy in fuel. In addition, the lifecycle analysis of beets for ethanol show a 60-plus percentage reduction in greenhouse gases when compared to fossil fuel emissions. This qualifies energy beet ethanol as an advanced biofuel under the Renewable Fuels Standard set by the Renewable Fuels Association.
Beets are also 75 percent water, said Libsack. That water can be reused in the beet washing as well as cooling towers at the facility, and it’s also potable water that can be fed into water treatment systems. The process also provides a high-nutrient residual pulp that could be used for livestock feed.
Whitley County now has more than 20 acres of energy beets scattered on farms across the county, said Mike Siler, director of infrastructure for the county. He said he attended meetings on Patriot’s plans with the Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet.
“They were real favorable toward it,” he said. “It looks like we’re going to get money to build the road.”
That road would lead to 24 acres that the county bought for industrial park use. The road, when the facility is at full production, would service 90 tractor-trailers a day, hauling in root stock and hauling out ethanol, said Siler.
“It would bring 150 jobs,” he said. “That would be a big boost for our county in this economy.”
Siler said the plan is for Patriot to lease dormant farms totaling roughly 6,000 acres within a 90-mile radius, including farms in surrounding counties. Patriot would farm the land with hired hands and company equipment. Having demonstrated the agricultural viability of energy beets, the crop would be expanded to other farmers within the region. Any specialized equipment for planting and harvesting, Siler said, could be cooperatively shared with farms.
A one-acre test plot of energy beets is being studied at the Center for Applied Energy Research at the University of Kentucky, said Ford. He added that it’s possible the beets could provide two crops annually. Patriot Bio-Energy also has five acres of energy beets in Adair County.
“We’ve filed letters of intent in both Whitley and Adair counties,” said Ford. He said that they currently are working on getting the financing and infrastructure in place.