Growing Back to the Future

In a society where nearly everything we touch is consumed and disposed of seemingly in a blink of an eye, it’s refreshing to hear of someone whose vision includes breathing new life and purpose into a century-old landmark.

It’s even more exciting when that vision includes helping ease two of today’s most pressing needs: fuel and food.

In an idyllic rural setting outside of Jefferson, WI, not far from Interstate 94 and situated between Madison and Milwaukee, the aptly named Renew Energy, has constructed a 130-million gallon/year, ethanol plant on the site of a former Cargill malting facility.

So, in a unique twist of fate, the remodeling of a facility originally dedicated to keeping breweries running for 100+ years, in favor of creating beer for ethanol production, makes perfect sense. Only now, it’s our nation’s thirst for fuel that’s being quenched.

“Obviously we were extremely fortunate to have a situation where we could capture so much value up front with the existing facility,” says Joe Thorner, vice-president and general manager, Operations for Renew Energy. “The storage and utility (electricity, natural gas and water), infrastructure assets were essentially in place for us, which helped execute our vision for the project.”

THREE-PRONGED APPROACH

The Oshkosh, WI-based Renew Energy had a specific plan in mind when looking for a site for what would become Wisconsin’s largest ethanol plant. This plan is based on a three-pronged approach focused on ways to capture value from the existing infrastructure, generate efficiencies and deliver benefits downstream.

This focus is representative of the three tenets of Renew Energy’s planned approach are the elements of environmental benefit, facility renewal/efficiency and high-value technology.

Although Thorner knew the facility well — he was part of the management team when Cargill operated the malting facility — it was understood that a key success element critical in making the transition from malting to manufacturing ethanol and feed products was minimizing the project’s environment footprint.

“For the size and scale of the operation envisioned we needed to certainly maximize our opportunities to create efficiencies wherever possible,” says Thorner. “All systems were reviewed and evaluated to uncover ways to reclaim and reuse essential resources.”

Through this process, Renew was able to reduce water usage by creating systems to recapture and re-condensate water. They reuse the hot, condensed water from the evaporators to help run the corn mashing system, thus reducing their thermal usage demand and their overall electric needs.

Additionally, water evaporated in the distrillation process is condensed and reused in the process as hot process water.

Currently, this system of recapture and reuse accounts for approximately 95% of their process water needs being met with reclaimed water.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO JEFFERSON

The second of the three prongs looked at utilizing the existing resources to capture value and improve efficiencies throughout the chain of production. One major asset the project had going for it from the get-go, was its ideal location.

“Getting our raw material in and our Renew Meal ™ product out the door on the back end, in a smooth, timely fashion is paramount to our success,” says Scott Busch, co-product merchandising and marketing manager, Renew Energy. “Logistically speaking, the Jefferson location puts us in a position to meet our expectations and those of our customers.”

A quick glance at a map and the logistical advantages Busch refers to almost leap off the page. Jefferson is sandwiched between Interstate 94 to the north and Interstate 90 a little more than 30 minutes to the south. It’s also dissected by a State Highway 26 which runs north/south, and the east/west running U.S. Highway 18. These well-traveled corridors make it easy for inbound and outbound deliveries from the plant.

The task of receiving product is made easier with the existence of a rail access and rail loadout capabilities at the plant as well.

To produce 130-mgy of ethanol takes a lot of corn. In fact, Renew has 10 million bushels of on-site storage thanks to 300 concrete storage structures left from the malting operation. Sourcing the corn isn’t seen as a problem either as Jefferson is located almost smack-dab in the middle of the top eight corn-producing counties in Wisconsin.

“We have the luxury of repurposing the storage facilities, the 60,000 bushels-per-hour hopper-bottom rail loadout and two, 30,000 bushel-per-hour truck bays, along with the conveying and material handling equipment,” Busch notes. “We captured a huge amount of value from the existing plant and saved nearly 20% right off the top, compared to building it all from scratch.”

TECHNOLOGY LEADS THE WAY

With an ideal location and a minimal environmental footprint in place the final step in making the conversion complete was to get the facility up-to-speed with the latest processing technologies.

“We had a specific idea for what we wanted to accomplish with our ethanol process and our co-product production,” says Busch. “Each process relied on the other to generate results and meet our expectations. For that we needed to employ new technologies.”

Faced with the task of producing 130 million gallons of ethanol and creating a value added feedstock out of the co-product, Renew Energy turned to corn fractionation technology to optimize the energy and feed potential from each kernel of corn.

In essence, corn fractionation separates the corn into its basic components — the bran, germ and endosperm. Once broken down and separated, each component can be utilized by the processor for a specific purpose.

“We can capture more than 80% of the fermentable starch available from each kernel via fractionation,” says Thorner. “Most other operations capture roughly 70% of the available starch.

“Another plus with fractionation is realized when you become more exact with your ability to extract fermentable starch and send it to the cooker,” Thorner points out, “This typically yields less non-fermentable inert material that, while non-usable for ethanol production, can be claimed for corn oil production, which helps with storage needs and adds downstream value as an ingredient.”

While fractionation occurs when the raw material comes into the facility and is the impetus that kick starts the value proposition, other high-tech processes play an important role in Renew’s present and future success.

“We installed a high efficiency dryer, which allows us to handle about 35,000 pounds per hour and gives us more consistency in our co-products which is hugely important for our feed customers,” says Busch. “With the HED in place, we can save up to 35 percent on our heat utilization since we use a non-contact heat exchanger. Also, with better heat exchange we have fewer gases going through the grain and notice fewer issues with discoloration.”

Another core element of the corporate vision was to create opportunities for adding value to the co-products. For Renew Energy, success lies in finding ways to overcome traditional objections by making a better end product.

A FULL 'MEAL' DEAL

When Renew Energy drew up the blueprint for its branded co-product feedstuff Renew Meal ™, they had several key weapons in their arsenal to aid in the composition and ultimately, the marketability of the feedstuff.

The key objections most livestock and poultry operators have had with adding DDGS to rations dealt with product inconsistency, nutrient quality and handling characteristics.

“Fractionation helps improve product integrity up front since it allows us to de-bran and de-germ to identify and optimize corn components while reducing waste and variability on the inbound product,” says Busch, “so right away we’ve improved the base structure of the feedstuff.”

As mentioned before, the HED drying system helps reduce scorching and heat variability in the drying process, after which the product is sent to a special kiln for further conditioning. The kiln system is an essential cog in the process as it uses gentle rolling and heating actions to condition roughly 2,000 tons/batch.

“Kiln conditioning helps differentiate our product because it dramatically improves the handling characteristic of the end product,” Busch notes. “After a conditioning sequence lasting between 36 to 48 hours the product comes out less sticky and much easier to handle, which makes our customers happy.”

Arguably the biggest asset Busch and Thorner have to draw upon to fulfill Renew Meal’s value proposition is found in the REVEAL system, a new proprietary process introduced by Cargill Animal Nutrition. (See sidebar for more on REVEAL system).

“This technology is a breakthrough for us because now we can truly know with a level of precision previously unavailable, the exact nutrient value of our co-products,” says Busch. “As a feed supplier this is huge because now when the Certificate of Analysis is attached to that load of feed, the end user now has options on how to best feed, mix or manage their ration for optimum nutrient value. We’ve now helped address the variability issue that’s limited acceptance of co-products in the past.”

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND

An agreement with Michigan-based Zeeland Farm Service, to market its Renew Meal feed, meets one challenge facing many ethanol plants: What to do with the co-products we produce?

Differentiation is very important to Renew as it seeks to position its branded feed line now and for years to come. Busch looks at a differentiation strategy as a huge opportunity to get closer to the marketplace.

“Part of what makes us different is how we push the technological envelope in every segment of production,” notes Busch. “From fractionation to our drying, conditioning and evaluation processes, new technologies elevate our performance and raise expectations of the co-products category.

“That means going out to our customers and suppliers to learn what’s important to them,” Busch emphasizes. “Whether its developing products with better amino acid profiles or pelletizing bran for fuel to capture 8,000 btu’s/lb. with less than 1% ash. This is what people want and we hope that they come to us for these solutions today, tomorrow and for years to come.”