Ohio rail business news

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Jetlink
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Re: Ohio rail business news

Unread post by Jetlink »

AARR wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:21 am
I thought that carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the ethanol production process. Or am I confusing it for another carbon product?
Y@ wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 7:41 am
The ethanol place at Riga has been used only for storage for a couple years now. And I’m not sure what an ethanol plant would want with carbon dioxide anyway...
You are correct AARR. CO2 is a by product of ethanol production. It can be captured and sold as a commodity. Many Ethanol plants simply get a permit and discharge it though. In fact that is a limiting factor in some plants production; the amount of CO2 they are permitted to discharge. It usually depends on local demand for CO2. If there is a local market or distributor nearby it will be captured and sold. If not it is discharged.
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Re: Ohio rail business news

Unread post by ns8401 »

Jetlink wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:12 am
AARR wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:21 am
I thought that carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the ethanol production process. Or am I confusing it for another carbon product?
Y@ wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 7:41 am
The ethanol place at Riga has been used only for storage for a couple years now. And I’m not sure what an ethanol plant would want with carbon dioxide anyway...
You are correct AARR. CO2 is a by product of ethanol production. It can be captured and sold as a commodity. Many Ethanol plants simply get a permit and discharge it though. In fact that is a limiting factor in some plants production; the amount of CO2 they are permitted to discharge. It usually depends on local demand for CO2. If there is a local market or distributor nearby it will be captured and sold. If not it is discharged.
So do those plants that find a buyer for it tend to make more ethanol as a result of not having a cap?
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Jetlink
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Re: Ohio rail business news

Unread post by Jetlink »

Not necessarily. In theory if the CO2 discharge rate was the limiting production factor, and the amount of CO2 captured and sold was significant and it was practical and economically feasible (thats the real kicker) then theoretically the production would be higher and your supposition would be true. I tend to think the amount of CO2 that could be sold would be much less than is produced at the plant. We are talking thousands of tons of CO2.

The reality is that when the plants are planned and constructed the feasibility study takes all input and output factors as well as local infrastructure a into effect as best as they can predict. The plant’s production capability is matched as closely as possible the outcome predicted by the feasibility study. Sometimes the local corn production and transportation infrastructure are limiting. Sometimes it could be infrastructure like natural gas, electrical power grid capacity, etc.

At Woodbury for example there was no local market for CO2. CO2 permitting was limiting. The plant was designed to be expanded to twice the original production in the event that the CO2 discharge allowed was increased. This actually did happen about 10 ish years after the plant opened. The additional hardware was constructed in the original footprint of the plant as designed. The plant now grinds twice as much corn everyday as it did when it opened. The process efficiency has also been refined and the plant has actually increased production from these efficiency gains as well.

So Woodbury was able to increase production through the political/permitting system rather than by marketing CO2. But the other could be true at other facilities. I do not have as much awareness of the situations at other ethanol production locations in the country as I do the facility in Woodbury.
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