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Biomass looks for boost
By MIKE CORN
Hays Daily News
Ask Lance Sherwood about the member-owned Prairie Fire BioEnergy Cooperative, and he'll be quick to tell you that it won't produce a drop of ethanol or biodiesel.
But it will provide fuel that can, for example, power an ethanol plant.
Prairie Fire, of which Sherwood is the manager, is in the final leg of a membership equity drive that will allow the cooperative to start construction later this year. One of those stops will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24 at Trisha's in Hoxie.
The cooperative is looking to western Kansas for its member-owners, who will supply the biomass the plant needs. That material could include corn stalks, wheat straw, out of condition hay or sawdust.
If all goes as planned, construction could start late this year on a tract of land west of Healy. Production of the biofuel could begin as early as next spring.
But if the plant won't create ethanol or biodiesel, what does it produce?
"What we're doing," Sherwood said, "is we're making the same thing that makes (grain) elevators blow up. But we're controlling that process."
Elevator explosions generally are caused by what is called grain dust, extremely explosive, but very small particles that become airborne. The explosion comes about when that dust meets up with a source of ignition.
The product Prairie Fire will make essentially will be a dust that is blown into a burner using compressed air, which suspends the particles. Some coal-fired power plants use the same principle, pulverizing coal and then blowing it into a burner.
The difference is Prairie Fire essentially will use waste farm products, and pay the farmer for them.
That's where the membership benefits come in, not to mention sharing in any profits the company might have.
Sherwood said a single industrial boiler, such as those in place at meatpacking plants in southwest Kansas, would require about 80,000 tons of material for an entire year.
Stalks from 220 irrigated circles of corn would be able to fulfill that need.
Two packing plants in the Garden City area, for example, have 16 boilers each.
Currently, they all are using natural gas.
The biomass, Sherwood said, would provide a "carbon-neutral, less-expensive fuel than natural gas."
Construction on the plant won't start until after the equity drive is complete, and Sherwood said they are looking to raise at least $4 million.
The equity meetings have been taking place in a 60- to 75-mile radius of Healy, where virtually all of the plant's material would come from.
Shares are being sold for $2,500 each, with a two-share minimum.
But Sherwood said the benefits could be extensive.
For example, he said, a farmer with a 45-bushel yield can expect to have net profits of about $39 an acre. By supplying the remaining wheat stubble to Prairie Fire, the farmer would be able to add $30 an acre to his net income.
How they do that is to pay a member a higher premium -- about $60 a ton -- for the biomass he produces.
"After that, we're going to go out and look for other products and will be paying less than that -- quite a bit less than that," Sherwood said.
His example of using irrigated corn is important because many farmers, in a rush to get corn stubble off the land, sometimes simply burn it.
This will provide them a place to dispose of the material, and make money on it.
Although developers first thought Prairie Fire would be the first of its kind in the nation, Sherwood said they've since found other plants doing similar things.
Ultimately, about 20 people will be working at the plant, something that would likely make it among the biggest employers in Healy.
And Sherwood is quick to point out it's a process that's not like ethanol plants in that it uses virtually no water.
But it could be used to fuel ethanol plants.
"That would be a good thing to get an ethanol plant to be totally green," he said.
Special-projects coordinator Mike Corn can be reached at (785) 628-1081, Ext. 129, or by e-mail at mcorn@dailynews.net.
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