Fargo’s Green Vision Group could make this a reality by 2014.
Excerpt from Sugar beets could be next big biofuel by Marino Eccher of INFORUM:
A Fargo-based energy company is moving forward with plans for the nation’s first-ever beet ethanol plant – the first step in an ambitious plan to turn one of the Red River Valley’s top crops into a biofuel mainstay.
The proposed plant was announced Monday by Green Vision Group, which touts beets as a cleaner, more efficient alternative to corn, which dominates current ethanol production. Lloyd Anderson, one of the Green Vision partners, said the company hopes to have a pilot beet ethanol plant up and running by 2012.
That plant would be a small-scale operation meant to demonstrate the viability of the ethanol beet technology and business model. It’s being developed in conjunction with an ethanol producer. Anderson did not identify the partner company or the planned site.
The test plant is expected to cost about $5 million. Green Vision Group is seeking money from the North Dakota Legislature. Eventually, the company plans to build a dozen larger production plants, with each expected to cost about $43 million. Commercial production of ethanol beets could start by late 2013 or early 2014.
The company hopes to produce 240 million gallons of ethanol per year. The state now has the capacity to produce about 350 million gallons of corn ethanol a year – about 2.5 percent of the nation’s ethanol production.
