biofuel plant in SE georgia

[Greg]

Anyone close to it.

Sounds pretty promising.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/15/news/economy/ethanol_trees/index.htm?postversion=2007051512

Greg

[WDH]

Pretty close.  As a landowner, I hope it helps the dismal stumpage prices we have.  The wood business is not in good shape.  I hope cellulosic biofuels will add some value, but I am afraid that any real helpful impact is at least 5 years away.

[Gary_C]

"We're not going to talk about how long it takes us to put up a plant," Mandich said. "We have asserted we believe we will be the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States."

Sounds a little iffy at the present time. Just because the details of the process (enzymes) to convert the cullulose to ethanol have not been worked out yet. I give it ten years minimum if that billionare has enough money to last that long.

[WDH]

Yes, there is some issue with the enzymes needed to convert cellulose to ethanol.  The enzymes for corn and the ones for wood cellulose are different.  I find out some more about what the specific issues are with the cellulosic enzymes and post it.

[customsawyer]

There is alot of talk about this in my area as I live about 20 miles from where this plant will be.
One of the things they are talking about is that it will use about 100 truck loads of chips per day when it gets up and running and from what I can gather it will have to take more than just the left over logging slash to get that many loads a day. They will have to take some of the chips from mid rotation thinnings and the like which will be fine as most of this will be pulp wood anyway and they are talking about still being able to use the pulp once the ethonol is taking out.
I have also heard that the state of Ga. is giving this company 82 million dollars to help with the cost of construction of the plant. Don't really have a problem with that if it will help to boost the economy of the area. I get scared of the thought that it might be like one of the enron scams and the company blows out of town with the states money never to be heard from again.
I have high hopes for this deal as long as it is works without hurting the areas enviroment. If I hear of any more news I will share what I learn.
Jake

[UrbanLogger]

This promise of increased stumpage is the same that we heard when the high-capacity chipmills started up on the Tenn-Tom Waterway in the mid eighties. Now we have several counties in mid Tennessee that are almost entirely cutover and a vast majority of the sawmills that sprinkled the area are shutdown or struggling with no merchantable sawlogs available or growing stock for the future.

I believe that the forest products industry should feed its own fuel demands with their waste, but their certainly isn't enough trash or byproduct to fuel our cars at current and projected increased demands.

[DanG]

This little corner of the world is grossly over-planted with pine, if you ask me.  These plantations need to be thinned, and the paper mills they were intended for doesn't exist anymore.  They have addressed the problem by building a big OSB plant here.  In SE Ga, they're addressing the same problem by building a fuel plant.

I don't think anybody is counting on celulosic alcohol to replace petroleum.  They're just looking for a way to utilize what they have available.  It should drive stumpage prices up.  If it doesn't, then the problem is a political one, and will have to be addressed as such.  We need to get to work on that, anyway.

[OneWithWood]

I agree that forest products will never be able to meet the total demand for fuel.  It might be able to meet some of it though.  For a forest products industry to meet their own fuel needs is a good goal.  Just remember before that can happen there needs to be a sustainable forest products industry.