April 24, 2006
ICM to build ethanol plant in Aylmer
AYLMER, Ont.
Stakeholders behind the development of an ethanol plant in southwestern Ontario The Kansas-based firm specializes in the design and construction of more than 50 such plants in North America, including a Suncor ethanol plant underway in Lambton County. That plant is to be completed this summer.
Integrated Grain Processors Co-operative chair Tom Cox said environmental, archeological, geological and other site studies need to be made before construction would begin. He estimates those studies should be complete in about six months.
“Some of the timelines for those (studies) can be a bit fluid and can change,” Cox said.
Once the ground is broken, it will take about 12 to 14 months of construction to erect the facility, he said.
“We would like to have completion in late 2007,” Cox said.
The Aylmer plant will generate 150 million litres of fuel annually using 15 million bushels of corn.
The fuel is manufactured by using a dry milling process. Along with ethanol, the process generates livestock feed and carbon dioxide that can be used for carbonized beverages.
When compared to building chemical plants or refineries, constructing ethanol plants is “specialized to the second degree,” said Don Wilhelm, ICM’s project manager for Suncor’s Lambton County plant in an interview last fall.
What makes the construction so specialized is the need to accommodate the process, which involves fermentation.
Protecting against contamination is key, he said.
“We have learned to arrange things in such a way so that it will minimize contamination, which in turn has the potential to cause outages on the process itself,” Wilhelm said.
What also sets ethanol plants apart from refineries or chemical plants is the positioning of equipment.
In the case of a refinery, equipment is set on the outside; in the case of ethanol plants, equipment is placed inside.
The plant will take about $100 million to build.
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