Proof’s in the alcohol

By Greg Booth
Photo by Rolf Hagberg

Live in Minnesota? Thanks to progressive legislation, your car is partly fueled by ethanol from corn. And someday soon, that ethanol might come from wheat and barley.

A study done by AURI and the Minnesota Wheat and Barley Councils indicates that ethanol made from these small grains could be economically attractive to producers — if other food and fiber products are manufactured at the same time.

Michael Sparby, AURI manager in Morris, says the study is clear that “if you’re going to do a wheat ethanol plant alone, it’s not going to work.

“It would require a state subsidy and other coproducts. (We’re) looking at bran fractions … those fractions would go into the high-end food market, the nutraceuticals market. With wheat, there’s also the possibility of gluten extraction.” Producing coproducts, he says, would make a wheat or barley plant about $7 to $8 million more profitable per year than a conventional ethanol plant.

That could be an economic boost for wheat and barley growers in the northwest part of Minnesota, says Marv Zutz, who directs the Minnesota Barley Research and Promotion Council in Red Lake Falls. “We’re excited about it. … We’re always looking for markets that add value to the raw commodity, value which the producers can share in, rather than just the export markets.”

Wheat or barley afflicted with vomitoxin, or scab, could be used to produce ethanol. However, bran fractions from infected grains could not be sold for food or feed use.

An ethanol plant could use seven to eight million bushels of wheat or barley per year to produce 15 million gallons of fuel, Zutz says. “We’re putting together a study checking out the transportation rates, the markets and whether or not we can produce ethanol at a profit.”

Minnesota is the leader in establishing ethanol production in the United States, Zutz says. With prices for ethanol steadily increasing along with petroleum-based fuels, a northwest Minnesota ethanol plant looks attractive to wheat and barley producers. While their grain might command a slight premium at an ethanol cooperative, the growers would profit more from dividends earned by their own ethanol facility.

To date, 10 sites have been looked at for a northwest Minnesota plant. While growers need a site near the Red River Valley, they also want to locate close to paper mills in the state’s northeast region. The Legislative Council on Minnesota Resources has given them funding to look at paper potential; the paper industry’s Blandin Corporation and the University of Minnesota are project partners.

“The ideal world would include a fiber project, making paper out of wheat straw, or Kraft pulp out of wheat straw mixed with poplar pulp,” Sparby says.

“It works in the lab, but we don’t know if it works in production.”

Sparby and the Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council’s Dave Torgerson have also met with representatives of a Chicago company interested in parts of the bran that could be utilized after ethanol production. “It keeps looking better, every little baby step we take,” Sparby says. “We’re optimistically skeptical.”