MARCI WRIGHT, Times staff writer
Plans to break ground in August for a 60 million-gallon biodiesel production facility in the industrial park can proceed as scheduled, Clinton County Area Board of Zoning Appeals told Indiana Clean Energy at Thursday’s meeting.
Indiana Clean Energy’s management team chose Clinton County’s industrial park as an ideal place to build the biodiesel plant, which will turn soybean plants into fuel.
The fuel will provide a cheaper, cleaner alternative to gasoline. Once the plants are chemically processed into biodiesel, it can be sold to companies that can blend the compound with fuels to sell to farmers or retail consumers, ICE CEO Murray Gingrich said.
“The facility won’t pose any negative impacts to the nearby residents,” he told the BZA members. “It will be odorless, noiseless and with no pollution.”
Gingrich said the only noise would be from trucks going to and from the facility, which will be built on 40 acres of County Road 0 near ADM Grain. The entire facility will be surrounded by a fence, he said.
BZA President Brad Judge was concerned about the facility’s proximity to Suncrest Elementary School, but Area Planning Commission member Curt Emanuel informed him that the plant would be more than one mile away from the school.
ICE hopes to make Clinton County’s plant the most efficient in the Midwest by recycling all of its steam, water and 99 percent of the methanol used, he said.
The only byproduct will be glycerine, he said, which is 80 percent hydrogen.
“We may come back in a few years and ask to build a hydrogen plant,” he said, “…which could create electricity for the entire industrial park.”
BZA member Mike Strange asked Gingrich to elaborate on the employment and pay scale of the plant.
Gingrich said it would employ about 35 people, and $2 million is allotted for the pay scale.
The BZA unanimously granted a clean air permit for ICE’s project, but specified three conditions that must be met: There must be an easement to the residential property on the north side of the plant, the only product used is limited to soybean oil, and the product produced must be biodiesel. However, the byproducts of glycerine and fatty acids are allowed, BZA President Brad Judge said.
“Biodiesel is a good place for (Clinton County) to start,” Judge said. “Biodiesel is less invasive compared to other plants.”
The BZA had to grant ICE a special exception, since no clean air permits exist in the county’s ordinances, Area Planner Mark Mills said. The only option under the county’s ordinance is to classify the biodiesel plant as an oil refinery, which is not accurate, Mills said.
Construction of the plant will cost about $40 million in fixed assets, ICE board member Mark Bunner said.