$228 million ethanol plant proposed for Henry County

Courier-Times

Ronald Lowhorn wants to build a $228 million ethanol plant in Henry County.

The Henry County man, who lives on Road 500E, plans to go before the Henry County Planning Commission at 7 p.m. April 26 to ask for rezoning of 112 acres where the plant would be built. Lowhorn is one of five founders of Twin Creek Ethanol.

If zoning is approved, construction would begin in June and the plant would be operational by August 2008. The total project has a capital investment of $228 million. The plant would be southwest of Road 600E and Central Avenue just north of Ind. 38.

"I am trying for an ethanol plant here," Lowhorn said. "We already own the land. We already got all this done."

The operation would employ 40-50 people full time with salaries averaging $30,000 to $40,000.

Lowhorn said he has the go-ahead from the gas and electric companies. The Belfour Beatty Rail has also approved providing railroad transportation to the site.

For water, Lowhorn said wells could be drilled; he says the water table in the area is high. A nearby creek may also be used.

Right now Lowhorn estimates that the plant complex would be 20-30 acres in size, but he is hoping to add another unit to its front to reduce the dried distiller grains with solubles, which is a byproduct of the ethanol process. The group has applied for a $20 million grant for the addition.

"Basically what they're making, guys, is moonshine," Lowhorn said. "What comes off the ethanol is the mash."

In the winter, the byproduct can be dried and in the summer transported wet.

The plant needs 35 million bushels of corn each year to produce the 110 million gallons of ethanol. The corn will be trucked into the plant using six or seven trucks entering the plant each hour during daylight hours.

The byproduct will be shipped out by trucks. The ethanol will be shipped out using the railroad and 29,000-gallon rail cars. Lowhorn wants the plant to operate 24 hours a day seven days a week each year. Lowhorn has a verbal contract, he said, with Marathon Oil which would take the ethanol produced.

Another portion of the infrastructure includes a track that would run in a loop around the plant where rail cars will load the ethanol.

Lowhorn will have company at the planning commission meeting, namely another ethanol plant that wants to build near Mount Summit. That plant is being proposed by Julian Gehman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer.

The two ethanol plant proposals will be reviewed at the meeting. Gehman's proposed facility would produce 100 million gallons of ethanol each year and would employ 50-60 people.

Lowhorn said that Henry County can support multiple ethanol plants and that within a 50-mile radius of his plant is access to 220 million bushels of corn each year.