In the quest to be greenest in Colorado’s renewable-energy sector, a Texas company is upping the ante, placing its chips on the table.
Cow chips, that is.
Dallas-based Panda Energy plans to build a $120 million ethanol plant in Yuma powered by cattle manure. Ethanol can fuel vehicles when mixed with gasoline.
In what Panda officials believe is a first in the commercial-scale ethanol industry, a renewable fuel will be used to manufacture another renewable fuel.
Yuma officials view the proposed plant as an economic windfall, producing 40 to 60 jobs at an average annual salary of $35,000 to $40,000 – up to 43 percent higher than prevailing local wages.
“In a little town like Yuma (population 3,500), 60 jobs is a pretty big deal,” said Bob Carpio, vice president of the Yuma County Economic Development Corp.
The ethanol process works like this: One billion pounds of cattle manure per year will be converted to a gas similar to methane. The gas will be burned to make steam from water, which in turn will cook corn kernels. The fermented corn mash yields ethanol.
“The corn continues to grow, and the cows continue to do what cows do – deposit manure,” said Todd Carter, president of Panda Development Group, a unit of Panda Energy. “It’s renewable from start to finish.”
Carter estimates that the plant will use most of the cow manure produced in Yuma County, helping feedlots dispose of a polluting and odoriferous substance.
Use of manure instead of fossil fuels will save the equivalent of 1,000 barrels of oil a day, Carter said.
The plant also leaves Colorado with a potential glut of ethanol. The 100 million gallon- a-year Yuma facility, combined with three other ethanol plants under development in the state, will produce an estimated 240 million gallons of ethanol a year.
Yet Colorado uses only about 100 million gallons a year, primarily to create the blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol sold by most gas stations.
“The good news from a consumer perspective is that it may help drive down ethanol prices,” Carter said, with excess ethanol then being sold out of state.
Panda Energy hopes the facility also will build the market for E85, a fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that can be used in “flex-fuel” vehicles.
At a fueling station in Yuma, E85 was priced Wednesday at $2.16 a gallon, compared with $2.58 for regular gasoline.
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-820-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
