by Stefanie Briggs 1-10-07
RICHARDTON- Who knew the aroma of baked bread, burnt toast or popcorn could be equal to the smell of success? It is for the Red Trail Energy LLC (RTE) ethanol plant here which started producing ethanol for the first time late Friday, Jan. 5.
For the town’s residents the smell was the first signal there was something brewing last Friday.
Resident Jacque Kitzan’s sensitive nose smelled the odor of burnt toast late in the night when the plant start up.
I woke up in the middle of the night because I smelled burnt toast late in the night when the plant started up.
“I woke up in the middle of the night because I smelled burnt toast, checked to see where it was coming from and my daughter had her bedroom window open so I realized it was coming outside of the house,” Kitzan said. “My neighbor thought it smelled like popcorn. It wasn’t bad. I had heard from other it can also smell like baked bread.”
The RTE Chief Executive Officer Mick Miller knows that smell. He’s been anticipating it for a long time.
“You can smell it,” Miller said. “The smell is from the process of grinding the corn, fermentation, just the entire ethanol making process. It’s coming from a certain area (of the plant).
Since Friday the plant has made about 300,000 gallons of ethanol, which is normal for when an ethanol plant starts up, he added.
Today, steam vapor pours out from the plant showing the rest of the world things are full steam ahead.
“You can only burn coal at such a low rate until it makes so much steam and we are just venting that until we have the facility up to full capacity, then we’ll use all the steam,” Miller said. “it’s not smoke or emissions, just pure water, steam vapor.”
“Just like a car, we need to add more fuel,” plant manager Ed Thomas said. “We’ll grind more corn and we need to have more fuel to take into capacity. More corn, coal and water mean more ethanol.”
Several contractors are still on site working on miscellaneous odds and ends such as lighting and other minor things, he added.
“The plant product won’t be shipped out until next week,” Miller said. “Currently, we are just making the wet feed (by-product). We’re in the middle of starting the dryers up so we should be making dry feed also by this week, hopefully.”
The dry feed is to be shipped out like the ethanol, by truck and rail, he added.
“We will have ethanol shipped out by both truck and rail, the trucks will send it in-state and ethanol is sent out of state by rail,” Miller said. “We’ve been sending out about 25 to 30 loads of wet feed all in state pretty much since Saturday.”
The plant is currently consuming about 200 tons of coal a day and around 35,000 to 45,000 bushels of corn a day, he added.
“That’s at about 80 to 90 percent capacity for the facility,” Miller said. “The coal will go up a little more once we start the dyers and speed the plant up. Corn will go up linear with that too. The faster we run the more corn we’ll grind.”
Miller said the plant could be running at full capacity at this time if so desired.
“We’re just taking it slow and making sure everything is working properly and getting everything into spec and balance,” he added. “Project-wise we are about 98 percent complete and operating or running at 80 to 90 percent total plant capacity.”
Miller also addressed a recent rumor floating around the area concerning the possible sale of the plant. Miller said RTE is not being sold to a foreign company.
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