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WNYE/EPCO Press Release: EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products, Inc. CO2 Production Plant is coming to Shelby, NY (May 17, 2007)
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May 17,2007
Western New York Energy, LLC is pleased to announce it has entered into a long term agreement with EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products, Inc. to provide raw carbon dioxide feedstock from its Shelby, NY ethanol plant to EPCO's adjacent carbon dioxide liquefaction plant. This new carbon dioxide plant will become operational during June 2008 and will bring approximately 15-20 new plant and trucking positions to the Shelby area.
This carbon dioxide liquefaction plant will produce up to 300 tons per day of refined liquid carbon dioxide recovered from the ethanol plant's fermentation process. Carbon dioxide is used in numerous beneficial applications within the food processing, beverage, oil recovery, municipal water treatment and chemical industries.
John Sawyer, CEO of Western New York Energy, LLC said "We are pleased to announce this agreement with EPCO, who, as the leading supplier of refined liquid carbon dioxide in the Gulf Coast and Midwest states, has demonstrated an outstanding track record in successfully commissioning seven other ethanol feedstock based carbon dioxide production plants. EPCO will refine the carbon dioxide feedstock into beverage and food grade liquid carbon dioxide for distribution in New York and other Northeastern states to fulfill a strong market need for the reliable and lower cost supply of liquid carbon dioxide within this area."
About Western New York Energy:
Western New York Energy, LLC is building the first green field fuel ethanol plant in the Northeast United States. The $90 million project in Shelby NY will produce in excess of 50 million gallons of fuel grade ethanol per year.
Ethanol is a clean burning, high octane, and domestically produced fuel that helps reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
Ethanol plant construction is currently underway and the plant is scheduled to begin production in November 2007. The ethanol plant will employ 50 full time employees and process approximately 20 million bushels of corn annually to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol, 160,000 tons of distiller's grain, 1.2 million gallons of corn oil, and over 100,000 tons of raw carbon dioxide gas that will be processed by the EPCO carbon dioxide liquefaction plant.
About EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products, Inc.:
EPCO, headquartered in Monroe, LA., was founded in 1987 and is the leading refiner and distributor of bulk liquid carbon dioxide within the central United States. The company currently owns and operates eight liquid carbon dioxide production plants.
In addition to the new Shelby, NY plant, EPCO is currently engaged in constructing three additional liquid carbon dioxide plants within the central United States located in Malta Bend, MO; and Marion, IN; and Milton, WI. These three plants will become operational in April, 2007; June, 2007: and January 2008, respectively. With the July 1st, 2008 commissioning of the new Shelby, NY plant, these 12 modern carbon dioxide liquefaction plants will produce over 3,400 tons of refined liquid carbon dioxide per day.
EPCO provides liquid carbon dioxide supply service to its customers in a market area that includes the Gulf Coast, Midwest and, with the start up of the Shelby, NY plant, the Northeastern United States.
For additional information on Western New York Energy please visit our website at www.wnyenergy.com or contact Michael Sawyer, Project Manager, at (585) 798-9693.
For additional information on EPCO please visit our website at www.epcoco2.com or contact Tom Gannon, Vice President Sales & Marketing, at 440-930-4779.
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The Future is Calling – Ethanol (May 09,2006)
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by Donn Esmonde of The Buffalo News
The future is in a farm field just off Bates Road in Orleans County. In a stretch of dirt and scrub brush lies a key to jobs - and more. On 144 empty acres is likely coming an industry of the 21st century - coming to an area with too many jobs tied to a vanishing past.
On the edge of Medina, a land of cornstalks and cows, lies not just a remedy for a town's return to health. We can hitch our tractors to an industry of the future. We can turn corn into something like liquid gold. And something more: We can take a small step away from our addiction to foreign oil, and the murky geopolitics and military messes it pulls us into.
The governor announced this week that an $87 million ethanol plant will be built here. It will turn corn our farmers grow into fuel to power our cars. It will bring 500 jobs, and multiples of that number if a rumored carbon dioxide bottling plant and other businesses follow.
"It is a lot better to purchase [fuel] products from farmers in Medina than from ayatollahs in Iran," Gov. Pataki said.
Whether Pataki, who may run for president, is ethanol-friendly because of politics or practicality doesn't matter. What matters is we are - for once - ahead of the field in an industry with a future. The ethanol-blend fuel E85 is cheaper than unleaded gas, burns cleaner and more engines are being made - many of them at the GM plant in the Town of Tonawanda - that can use it.
It is good for the farmers. It is good for the area. It is good for America.
We have seen time after time, loss after loss, what happens when an economy is tied too tightly to an industrial past. From Bethlehem Steel to General Motors to Delphi, the hits keep coming. The loss of jobs hurts families, fuels an exodus to other states and batters our communal psyche.
Folks here have seen it for themselves. Fisher-Price 10 years ago closed its Medina factory and headed to Mexico. Last week BernzOmatic, which makes propane torches, said it was moving its 200 Medina jobs to Shanghai.
"We'd heard that if things didn't get better, maybe there would be some changes in a couple of years," said Richard Jenkinson, who worked at BernzOmatic for 15 years. "Nobody expected it this soon."
Jenkinson and 200 others are the latest casualties of our over-industrialized economy. We have suffered enough. Ethanol is likely here to stay. We have the corn. We likely soon will have the plant. America has the need for alternative fuels.
It is nice, for once, to have a hand in a new technology. It is good to have a stake in an industry whose best years are ahead of it, not a memory.
Dale Watts knows about memories.
"I'm not sure we've ever recovered from Fisher-Price leaving," said Watts, Shelby's deputy supervisor, wiping his hands Tuesday morning after emerging from a bay at his auto shop. "This brings us a little sunshine."
Shelby soon will have the only ethanol-producing plant in the state. Sitting in a tractor Tuesday in a field off Scott Road, pulling a 12-row corn planter, Todd Roberts said it was good news.
Roberts has been farming, mostly corn, all of his life. Like most farmers, he is mortgaged and leveraged "up to my neck."
The necktie just loosened.
"What this gives us," said Roberts, "is more long-term market options. Anything that increases the demand [for corn] is good."
The higher gas prices go, the worse things get in the Middle East, the better ethanol looks. Which makes it look like a sure thing.
The future is coming to a dirt field near Medina. The future looks good. It looks good whether you are sitting in a tractor in a cornfield, in a car at a traffic light - or in a tank in Baghdad.
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State Spurs Ethanol Plant (May 09, 2006)
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Work at Orleans County site may start in June, be first in N.Y.
by David Tyler of The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
SHELBY - Construction on the state's first ethanol plant could begin as early as next month, helping to turn New York into a leader in alternative fuel production, Gov. George Pataki and other officials said here Monday.
New York will spend nearly $6 million to help the process along, officials said.
Western New York Energy LLC plans to spend $87.4 million to build on 144 acres in this Orleans County town. The plant should be open by early 2008, Western principal John Sawyer said.
The plant will produce 50 million gallons of ethanol a year and create 58 jobs, officials said.
Pataki, speaking with a farm field as a backdrop at Shelby Town Hall, said the plant and others like it will also help to wean the country from dependence on foreign oil.
"It is just, in my view, tragic that in the 21st century we still have that dependency," Pataki said.
Pataki also said that as many as 500 jobs would be created in ancillary industries such as transportation and agriculture. The plant will use 20 million bushels of corn a year, with 6 million expected to come from New York state farms.
The state support includes $3.1 million to help build rail and other transportation access to the site and $435,000 in the form of a grant. Western New York Energy also will be eligible for up to $2.5 million in renewable energy production tax credits. The plant site, near Route 31A and Bates Road, also is in an Empire Zone, which would entitle the business to state tax breaks over 10 years.
Federal officials are considering a $25 million package of loans and incentives for the plant, said U.S. Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-Clarence, Erie County. "Hopefully more (businesses) will follow Western New York Energy into ethanol," Reynolds said.
The Shelby plant is one of at least three ethanol projects being planned around central and western New York and looks to be the first to break ground.
A coalition of corn growers plans a 50 million-gallon-a-year plant in Seneca County and is trying to decide whether to place the plant in Seneca Falls or at the old Seneca Army Depot in Romulus.
Northeast Biofuels has proposed a 100 million-gallon-a-year plant in Fulton, Oswego County.
As the price of gasoline continues to rise, ethanol has become a more economically attractive option for producers. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have launched ambitious campaigns to market ethanol-powered vehicles, which have helped public awareness.
New York's strong heritage in agriculture, chemistry and engineering also make it an attractive place to build such plants, experts say.
Distillers' grains and carbon dioxide, two byproducts of ethanol production, also are in high demand, and the Shelby plant expects to sell those byproducts, said Mike Sawyer, John Sawyer's son and another principal in the project.
After looking at sites in five counties, Western New York Energy chose Shelby because of its proximity to road and rail transportation, the area's solid work force and the reception the idea received, John Sawyer said.
"The support here from the community has been fantastic," he said.
Pataki has proposed bringing alternative fuels to New York state Thruway rest stops and offering consumers incentives for buying alternative fuel vehicles.
Albion farmer Joe Panek attended Monday's announcement and said the ethanol plant comes as welcome news to farmers. The ability to sell the crop close to home will save him $30,000 to $50,000 a year, he said.
"To have a market locally is fantastic," he said.
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