MPR: Coal's comeback:
by Mark Steil, MN Public Radio -- Feb 16, 2005
"Heron Lake BioEnergy board member Milt McKeown says this is a perfect time to build. Investors are interested in ethanol because the corn based fuel is profitable. About a thousand farmers and other investors pledged nearly $40-million to help build the Heron Lake plant. Most Minnesota ethanol plants use natural gas, but McKeown says coal was an easy choice.
'When we looked at the economics of it and compared it to natural gas, that's what started us off on the search to find a way to put together a coal-fired plant,' says McKeown.
By one estimate coal is a half to a third cheaper than natural gas. ICM, a Kansas based engineering company, designed the Heron Lake plant. ICM's Bill Roddy says Heron Lake BioEnergy will use what he calls clean coal technology to reduce pollution. Roddy says most of the pollutants released at Heron Lake will be equal or less than those released by burning natural gas."
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment