News : Fiberight making ethanol from paper mill waste; household garbage may be next

The 15-year-old file in Mark Greenley’s office for the property on 78th Street southeast of Blairstown is growing thicker.

It was back in 1995 when a group of investors, including many area farmers, obtained approval for a promising new venture – an ethanol plant.

Greenley oversees the Benton County land use changes, which are necessary for such projects.

The plant first opened in 1998 as the Sunrise Energy Cooperative, but closed after a few months of operation. It reopened again under a new name – 78th Street Ethanol – and new management. But that venture failed, as well. Many investors – including many area farmers – lost much of what they had invested in the operation.

In October of 2004, the Xenthanol company, based in New York, bought the facility for $5.74 million in what is believed to be the largest sheriff’s sale in Benton County history. That company invested heavily in the plant, and it reopened in 2005. But that venture also ended in failure.

In November of 2009, Xenthanol sold the entire facility to Fiberright for $1.65 million – more than $4 million less than it had paid five years earlier.

Craig Stewart-Paul, the owner of Fiberight, LLC, has been working with county officials for the past year, as he and his company began converting the plant.

In May of this year, the company issued a following press release containing this information about its initial successes:

"Fiberight LLC announced today that it commenced production at the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant using enzymatic conversion technology and industrial/municipal solid waste (MSW) as feedstock. Fiberight recently completed its initial stage development by converting a former first generation corn ethanol plant in Blairstown, Iowato cellulosic biofuel production which incorporates specialized waste treatment and biochemical technologies to efficiently turn MSWinto biofuel. Fiberight has retained Source Capital Group Inc. of Westport, Conn., to complete a financing led by Venture Cross Partners of Great Falls, Va. to provide expansion capital for the Blairstown biorefinery. Following a total $24 million investment, the facility will be scaled to final commercial production capacity of approximately 6 MMgy in 2011."

In layman’s terms, what Fiberight does is take waste from a paper mill in Cedar Rapids, and uses rare bacteria – Stewart Paul refers to that bacteria as “the bugs” – to convert the sugar in that waste into ethanol.

And so far, Fiberight is succeeding.

“He’s had great success,” said Ranae Becker, the director of the Benton Development Group.

Becker attended Tuesday’s meeting of the supervisors to discuss the project.

Stewart-Paul plans to visit with the supervisors in the next few weeks to talk about the next phase of his plan: Using regular kitchen waste to produce ethanol.

The supervisors see both potential and challenges in this process.

“He has shown in can be done on a minor scale,”’ said Supervisor Dave Vermedahl. “But will it work on a larger scale?”

The supervisors believe that the main challenge is that working with the paper mill waste provides a consistent initial product. But using household garbage would involve using a raw material that varies day-to-day.

Stewart-Paul believes that he can succeed; if so, he can help solve two of America's largest problems: Energy and solid waste.

“This would make us one of the first in the country to do this,” said supervisor Ron Buch. “This could be a big thing if they can figure it out.”

Stewart Paul has told the supervisors in previous meetings that in the ideal situation, garbage trucks would first haul their waste to Fiberright. Then anything that could not be used to make ethanol would be taken to the landfill, which is southwest of Blairstown.

“Instead of turning right, they would turn left,” he said of the garbage trucks.

The supervisors are in favor of that, but have questions about the county’s investment, and other long-term issues.

“You can tell him we are interested but we have a lot of questions,” Vermedahl said to Becker.