Biomass Energy Facility Planned for Western Ohio

Cincinnati-based company plans to use algae, manure and other feedstocks.

Following five years of research and pyrolysis system design, Ag-Environ-Tech LLC (AET), a Cincinnati-based energy development company, says it is planning to build what it calls “an ecologically correct, self-sustaining biomass waste-to-green-energy conversion system” in Mercer County, Ohio.

The process is designed to convert toxic algae from nearby Grand Lake St. Marys, livestock waste and other raw materials into electricity and synthetic diesel fuel. An important efficiency of the technology is that it operates using the same energy it produces, allowing both the supply and the operations energy costs to be completely controlled, says AET in a news release. AET adds that the process “returns no pollutants to the air or soil.”

Mercer County was chosen because it is a leading agricultural production county in Ohio, with abundant biomass resources and proximity to the toxic algae growing in Grand Lake St. Marys, says AET.

The environmental benefits of processing animal and other biomass wastes into green energy are manifold, according to AET: “It answers the need for a domestic non-petroleum-based alternative fuel, cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner soil and the elimination of animal waste stockpiling.”

Citing a January 2008 New York Times article, AET says that “livestock waste in the U.S. amounts to approximately 900,000 tons annually.”

The project also provides substantial profit sharing for the egg laying, beef feedlot, dairy and food processing industries that supply the necessary bio-mass raw material, according to AET.

At a projected initial cost of $19 million, AET says its project in Mercer County is expected to generate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ) cash flow in excess of $243 million during a 10-year period.

In its news release, AET says that it is considering five additional biomass-based energy projects in western Ohio and eastern Indiana.

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