FARGO, N.D. -- They're calling it a long shot, but officials of Agassiz Energy L.L.C. -- the group that tried to build an ethanol plant in Erskine, Minn. -- now are looking at the potential of a site in Grand Forks, N.D.
Don Sargeant, president, chairman and governor of the Crookston, Minn.-based Agassiz Energy, has confirmed that his organization has inquired about the availability of water and wastewater treatment availability, as well as energy sources for a site north of town.
The project size being discussed, hypothetically, would be in the 70 million-gallon-per-year range, Sargeant confirms. That's the same as what it would have been in Erskine.
Sargeant says the landowner has not confirmed any financing.
"It's more talk right now than reality," Sargeant says, adding, "Money talks and we don't have any."
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The Erskine project in early April was scuttled because the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency demanded extra environmental studies, costing another half-million dollars. The Erskine plant had a solid fuel energy center, which could have burned coal or other biomass. North Dakota has the similar standards, but the permitting process typically goes more quickly and without as much detail.
Officials of the project have confirmed that some $2.5 million was expended in evaluating the Erskine site, without receiving the go-ahead on the permits.
Sargeant says a project in Grand Forks would be a "high-risk" program because there are very little capital investments going into ethanol construction right now.
"This would have to be a unique site that would have the highest capability of getting capitalized," he says.
A $140 million cost for such a plant would increase $30 million to add a "fractionalization process," which creates a higher-protein distiller's grain of 45 percent and capture some food grade corn oil. This creates higher value co-products. It can create some methane for using within the plant, among other things.
If the project could attract $70 million in loans, that leaves a $100 million gap to capitalize, he says.
Grand Forks currently has some water available to develop such a project, because of the recent closure of the North American Foods (former RDO Foods) dehydrated potato flake processing plant in Grand Forks.
