Turning Corn and Manure into Ethanol

Remember buffalo chips? How the native americans burned dried buffalo chips for heat and cooking? We're at it again!

Turning waste products into productive products is the new trend in greening and zero waste thinking. However, growing corn for energy isn't quite as efficient as using byproducts. And we also have to ask if all these cattle being grown are effective use of our land, vegetation, clean air, etc. in order to get their waste products for moving cars down the road. But in the meantime...we're in a transition to understanding that there is no waste in nature. Everything but the squeal is useful in some way. Here's a step toward that goal...



Panda Ethanol to Build its Second 100 Million Gallon Plant in Texas

November 2, 2006 - Source: Clean Edge News

Panda Ethanol Inc. announced that it intends to build a 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant near the city of Muleshoe in Bailey County, Texas. When finished, the facility will annually refine approximately 38 million bushels of corn into a clean-burning, renewable fuel for the nation's transportation needs. The ethanol produced by the plant will displace approximately 2.6 million barrels of imported oil a year.

The Muleshoe facility will generate the steam used in the ethanol manufacturing process by gasifying more than 1 billion pounds of cattle manure a year. Once complete, it will be one of the most fuel efficient ethanol refineries in the nation and equal in size to Panda's Hereford facility, currently under construction, which will be the largest biomass-fueled ethanol plant in the United States.

The Muleshoe facility is the sixth 100 million gallon ethanol project announced by Panda, and the fourth to be powered by cattle manure. The company has received air permits for three of its six announced ethanol projects.