California Plant to Spin Straw Into Environmental Gold

OROVILLE, Calif. — California’s first attempt to turn rice stubble and tree trimmings into ethanol resembles a scene from “Back to the Future,” when trash is dumped into Mr. Fusion at one end and pure energy comes out the other.

The proposed “bio-refinery” will convert thousands of tons of rice straw, orchard prunings and other agricultural waste into ethanol, a sort of 200-proof moonshine that state air-pollution fighters hope will soon replace the unpopular additive MTBE in California gasoline.

“We see it as an efficient waste-based ethanol plant that takes advantage of low-cost and no-cost materials,” said Stephen J. Gatto, head of Boston-based BC International Corp., which plans to start construction next year south of Oroville, 60 miles north of Sacramento.

Rice farmers see it as a match made in heaven.

Blocked by state air regulators from burning their stubble, the growers disc the hardy straw back into the ground. That costs $30 an acre, about a fourth of the growers’ profits.

About 500,000 acres of rice are grown in the Sacramento Valley, producing about 1.5 million tons of of rice straw.

Rice growers have hunted for ways to use rice straw since new air-quality rules took effect in 1993. House insulation, woven furniture and scaffolding were among the uses tried. None worked out.

Growers believe they’ve found the answer in ethanol.

“We can get this stuff off the field and at least break even. That’s all we really want to do with the rice stubble--break even,” said Ken Collins, who farms 1,600 acres of rice near Biggs and plans to ship his rice straw to the new plant.

The Oroville factory will convert about 75,000 tons of rice straw, 125,000 tons of orchard slash and 40,000 tons of other agricultural waste into ethanol each year.

“You’re looking at about 900 tons there,” Collins said, as his workers tended to a two-story-high mound of baled rice straw culled from his fields. Collins is among a group of growers who have formed a cooperative to feed the new plant.

Ethanol is a familiar product in the Midwest, where factories convert cornstarch into about 1.6 billion gallons annually.

Illinois, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota are among states with ethanol factories, providing a market for the states’ corn growers and a cleaner mix of fuel for states facing EPA air-pollution-fighting mandates.

A bushel of corn produces about 2.5 gallons of ethanol.

“We’re making corn whiskey, is what it amounts to. But ethanol is very clean. It clearly is a benefit to air quality, and it does add octane,” said Trevor Guthmiller, executive director of the South Dakota-based American Coalition for Ethanol.

Midwestern ethanol growers see California--and its more than 20 million licensed drivers--as a huge new market. BCI’s factory, expected to open by 2001, won’t produce enough ethanol to replace all 540 million gallons of MTBE burned annually in the state.

Environmentalists generally supported Gov. Gray Davis’ March decision to phase out MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, noting that MTBE contamination had been reported in lakes and ground water across the state.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner said last month that the EPA would seek to reduce the use of MTBE, citing a threat to drinking water.

The Oxygenated Fuels Assn., an Arlington, Va.-based trade association representing MTBE producers, said the compound protects air quality and will prove costly to replace.

“It is the most cost-effective and cleanest source of octane,” said Terry Wigglesworth, the group’s executive director. “Replace that with something else that’s not proven, and you’re going to have all kinds of problems.”

Ethanol backers say the cost to motorists would be about the same in California as with MTBE. In the Midwest, ethanol has had little effect on pump prices, Guthmiller said. California’s gasoline prices already are among the highest in the nation, with unleaded regular averaging about $1.50 a gallon recently.

Gatto said ethanol has uses beyond gasoline, including mouthwash, aftershave, perfume and solvents.

The Midwestern plants derive sugar from cornstarch to make the ethanol, a relatively simple process. In Brazil, ethanol is made using cane sugar.

BCI’s plant, expected to open by 2001, will use new technology to separate cellulose from the “biomass”--wood, straw, leaves, fruit pits and other items--and use that sugar to make the ethanol.

The California Energy Commission is studying the use of ethanol and other compounds as fuel additives.

“Clearly the technology is there, and it’s not that difficult to produce ethanol through the conversion process,” commission spokeswoman Claudia Chandler said. “The question is, ‘Is it economical and is there a market for it?’ ”

The BCI operation will produce about 22 million gallons of ethanol a year, or roughly 70 to 100 gallons per ton of biomass.

Collins and others believe it’s just a start.

“We could use all our rice straw and all our orchard prunings, and we’d still hardly sustain the demand,” Collins said.

A similar biomass ethanol plant, also run by BCI, has begun operation in Jennings, La. It produces about 22 million gallons annually. That plant cost about $90 million, and the Oroville facility is expected to cost about the same, Gatto said.