Nebraska business will harvest corn stover for cellulosic ethanol
By Ken Anderson
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March 3, 2009
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A new Nebraska-based business is contracting with farmers for their corn stover.
Plans are to use the residue as the raw product for a cellulosic ethanol plant
in central Nebraska, which could begin production in 2012.
Farmer Paul Kenney of Amherst is the president of Energy Grains Biomass. He says
they will need 83-thousand acres of stover for the first year of production by
the proposed 20-million gallon plant.
“The really unique thing about what we’ll be doing, there will be two collection
sites, probably around central Nebraska,” says Kenney, “and at these collection
sites we’ll store bales, but we’ll also process bales. These bales will be
processed into pellets.”
Kenney says converting the stover to pellets will make it easier to store and
transport. In addition to ethanol production, he says the pellets could also be
used by other plants using burners.
Kenney says farmers will be paid around 15 dollars per ton for their stover, and
the company will harvest around three tons per acre.
“The University of Nebraska says that you’re putting off probably five and a
half tons, but we don’t want to take it all,” Kenney explains. “We want to leave
the ground cover there and just have that ground prepared that the guy can come
back in and plant right into that field.”
Kenney’s company has contracted with NextStep Biofuels, the company that will
construct the ethanol plant. Kenney says the two collection sites and the plant
will likely be located in the Platte River valley of central Nebraska.
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NeCGA Corn Grower Open
7/25/13
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