Start-Up Company Prepares for Groundbreaking of First Large Scale Ethanol Production Plant in California

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Privately-held start-up ethanol venture, Pacific Ethanol Incorporated (Fresno, California) has scheduled an April 4, 2005 groundbreaking ceremony for California’s first large-scale ethanol production facility. The project began taking shape when Pacific Ethanol acquired the Coast Grain grain handling facility in Madera, California, in June 2003. The Coast Grain facility would provide the infrastructure to support the large-scale ethanol plant. The handling facility has milling capability, rail access, a new office building and can store up to 49,000 tons of grain.

Plans are to construct a $50 million, 35 million gallon-per-year fuel ethanol plant that will also feature a 10-megawatt natural gas-fired cogeneration unit, which will provide process steam and electricity for the plant. Some 290,000 tons of wet distiller’s grains and 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide byproducts will also be generated from the facility, annually.

Pacific selected Delta T Corporation (Williamsburg, Virginia) to provide the process technology for the plant, and W.M. Lyles Company (Fresno, California) will act as the general contractor.

Once construction begins in April, the company is expecting to have the project completed and preparing to process its first loads of grain by mid-2006.

A second facility of the same size is planned within the next two years in Visalia, California.

Pacific Ethanol plans to first bring existing technology of corn-to-ethanol production to the Central Valley and then continue to lead by incorporating innovative technologies, such as cellulose-to-ethanol conversion and, ultimately, produce ethanol for hydrogen fuels cells. Former California Secretary of State, Bill Jones, founded the Company.

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