There are some producer hopefuls modifying old chemical or pharmaceutical factories to become biorefineries, but this concept didn't work for CBEC. "Everyplace we looked we found, because of the unique nature of running a biorefinery, it takes ground-up design to gain the efficiencies needed for the long term," Bowers says. "That's why we bit the bullet and have taken our time getting there with something we can take and literally do mirror images of in other places." CBEC plans to establish 11 identical 12.5 MMgy factories by 2012—three in California, four in Arkansas and four in Texas—all modeled after the first. "People might think 12.5 MMgy is nothing, but when you're dealing with biomass, in order to make it feasible you need these smaller plants in the middle of the biowastes in a lot of different areas, instead of having one huge plant trying to gather all this biomass and hauling it there," Nannen says. "That's the way it works."

Company executives even envision taking this global, saying they have been talking with interested parties in Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Egypt, Colombia, Peru and Spain. "Rice straw is the largest agricultural residue in the world at 800 million tons a year, the second being corn stover at 100 million," Bowers says. "Since rice is the most widely grown and distributed product, it only makes sense to have a system that would handle those rice wastes—and one that could be taken and replicated with relatively low engineering costs for every new site. Every continent but Antarctica raises rice, which isn't true for any other ag product. That's why we're here."

Ron Kotrba is an Ethanol Producer Magazine staff writer. Reach him at rkotrba@bbibiofuels.com or (701) 746-8385.

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