Across the country, ethanol plants powered by methane instead of costly natural gas or coal are on the drawing board, a movement that could be a win-win situation for both the environment and the industry.

 
“We’ll produce ethanol much more efficiently and do it in an environmentally friendly way,” said Dennis Langley, CEO of E3 BioFuels.

 
Burning the methane will cut the amount of the greenhouse gas, which contributes to global warming, released into the environment.

 
Using methane also addresses a longtime criticism that making ethanol uses too much natural gas or coal to produce.  Supporters of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels contend they burn cleaner than fossil fuels, reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give farmers another market to sell their produce.

 
As previously reported, the first plant using a so-called methanol closed-loop system is set to begin operations here in February.  Under the closed-loop system at the Mead plant, manure will fall through metal slats in the cattle pens and be collected. Methane from the manure will be trapped instead of being allowed to drift into the atmosphere, and then used to generate power for the plant. Corn and grain will be used to produce ethanol and cattle will eat the wet distiller’s grain that is a byproduct of ethanol production, closing the loop.

 
A 40-million gallon ethanol plant can save millions of dollars annually in energy costs by using onsite methane instead of natural gas, says David Mager, VP of Bion Environmental Technologies, a company that is currently working with about five ethanol plants.

Traditional methods of making ethanol have been criticized for not reducing reliance on fossil fuels as much as advertised.  On average, it takes one unit of fossil-fuel based energy to produce ethanol containing between two and 2.5 units of energy, according to Langley.

 
A spokesman for the RFA, a national trade association for ethanol, says the ratio is even lower, closer to one unit producing 1.67 units of ethanol energy.  Citing that ratio, “the idea that the energy balance equation goes against ethanol is really a non-argument anymore,” said the RFA’s Matt Hartwig.

 
Still, Langley believes the margins are too thin and that traditional ethanol production is too inefficient to be sustainable.  One unit of energy at his plant, he says, will turn out more than 46 energy units from ethanol.  “We blow it away,” Langley said of his plant compared to traditional gas and coal-fired ethanol plants. “It’s a radical departure.”

 
As for a source for the methane, manure isn’t the only answer.  Outside Jackson, NE, Leonard Gill, owner of a regional landfill, plans on drawing gas from trash.
Pipes will transport the methane to an ethanol plant about a mile away. The methane will provide a portion of the plant’s power and could save about $250,000 annually in energy costs, according to officials at the plant.