BY TARA G. MATHEWSON

editor@journal-register.com

There are 120,000 acres of Orleans County dedicated to farmland.

That’s an entire half of the county’s total acreage, according to the USDA Farm Service Agency. With Western New York Energy LLC in the market for millions of bushels of corn for ethanol, farmers in the area have done their best to supply.

CY Farms of Elba sold 100,000 bushels to the new ethanol plant in Shelby and added their corn to the 19 million bushels WNY Energy LLC consumed in its first year of production. Farmers say this year’s growing season for corn was one of the best in memory. Mike Riner, a farm manager at CY Farms, said yields were probably 30 bushels per acre better than the averages of recent years.

“It’s rare we have a season that was this consistent with rainfall and sunshine,” Riner said.

Normally, with yields so much higher than average, farmers would have to set up new storage bins to keep the corn, but the ethanol plant is a ready and willing buyer.

“This plant has been a tremendous asset as far as a place to put the corn,” said Bill Eick, president of the Orleans County Farm Bureau, who estimated this year’s yields even higher than Riner.

WNY Energy LLC, went online Nov. 29, 2007. After one year of production, Michael Sawyer, chief financial officer of the plant, put ethanol output at almost 55 million gallons, more than officials originally projected. They’ve also produced three byproducts: About 160,000 tons of distiller’s grain that can be sold as livestock feed, 1.2 million gallons of corn oil and about 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide since the CO2 plant started up Aug. 5.

Tom Snyder, a Village of Medina trustee, sees the marketing of these byproducts as one of the best parts of the ethanol plant.

“It’s waste-free,” Snyder said. “All of it gets reutilized.”

EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products Inc. was built next to WNY Energy’s existing structure to capture the carbon dioxide released from the ethanol-making process. The CO2 plant traps the gas being produced and sends it through a system to get rid of impurities and turn it into 99.99 percent pure carbon dioxide gas. From there, EPCO sells the gas to greenhouses, water treatment plants and beverage manufacturers.

“We’re helping to reduce greenhouse gases and we’re taking a natural byproduct of an existing company and we’re turning around and making a product out of it,” said Tom Schultz, EPCO plant manager.

The CO2 plant currently is only running a few days per week because it can’t sell as much carbon dioxide as it can capture from the ethanol plant. But by spring, Schultz hopes to run more steadily with greenhouses and water treatment plants more active and beverage plants gearing up for a busier summer season. When the plant is operating, it produces 350 tons of carbon dioxide per day.

Production process

Looking into the community, there have been very few vocal opponents, especially since the ethanol plant began producing. In the planning stages, both Village of Medina and Town of Shelby officials heard complaints about possible smell and noise issues, but objections have died down.

“We’re committed to being good neighbors and we do everything we can do here at the plant to minimize any impact we can have on the community,” Sawyer said. “Overwhelmingly, the community has been very supportive.”

Besides an early morning whistle from the “corn train,” and a new smell to get used to, Shelby residents say they have little to complain about. Many point to benefits from the local plant. James Marciszewski, a truck driver for the CO2 plant, appreciates the boost to the local economy: the truckers for the plant who stop for breakfast before leaving town, the farmers that have an extra market for their corn and — of course — the new employees that enjoy competitive salaries compared to other local options.

“Any time you get anyone employed, it helps,” Marciszewski said. “There aren’t a lot of jobs in the area.”

Sawyer adds to the list of benefits the amount of money spent locally.

“Our No. 1 expense is corn; No. 2 is people. Most of the corn is coming locally, and all of our people here are local, so our salaries are there,” Sawyer said. In fact, 70 percent of WNY Energy’s corn comes from Orleans or a bordering county.

The ethanol plant runs 24/7, with no weekends or holiday breaks. Corn comes in every morning, and more than 100,000 gallons of ethanol is produced by the end of the day.

After the first year, Sawyer and the rest at WNY Energy look toward the future.

“It’s something that is very beneficial to the local economy and also has significant impacts nationally, as our country moves toward cleaner sources of energy,” Sawyer said. “We see it as a significant area for growth in the future.”



FROM PLANT TO FUEL

At the ethanol plant in Shelby, corn goes through seven major steps to become ethanol:

• 1: The corn is crushed and ground into “meal,” a rough-textured flour.

• 2: The meal is mixed with water and an enzyme that, combined with extreme heat, changes the meal from solid to liquid. It’s now called “mash.”

• 3: Everything is cooled and another enzyme is added so the mash becomes fermentable sugars (which make them able to undergo the next step).

• 4: Yeast is added, which converts the sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide.

• 5: This mixture is called beer and is 15 percent alcohol. It goes through a distillation process that removes the alcohol from the rest of the mash. The alcohol is distilled into 96 percent ethanol, and everything else moves on to be separated into individual byproducts.

• 6: The alcohol goes through a dehydration system to remove the last of the water and becomes pure ethanol (200 proof alcohol).

• 7: A small amount of gasoline is added to the ethanol at this point, so humans can’t drink it as alcohol, and the process is complete.

At WNY Energy LLC in Shelby, there are extra steps to process the distiller’s grain and corn oil, while adjacent EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products Inc. takes care of the carbon dioxide, making four products instead of just one.