By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — SynGest, Inc. last week announced plans to build the nation’s first plant to manufacture anhydrous ammonia (nitrogen) fuel and fertilizer from renewable corn biomass – or corn cobs and other corn refuse – in Menlo, Iowa.

SynGest will join Scotland, S.D.-based POET, LLC in Emmetsburg, Iowa, as the latest, major ethanol company to move its plant operations to Iowa to produce commercial cellulosic ethanol energy.
“Clearly, the state is the number one corn-producing region in North America,” said Jack Oswald, SynGest CEO about why the San Francisco-based company chose Iowa.

“But we were also influenced by two other factors,” he said on March 30. “Iowa offers a smart and productive workforce, and the state is very proactive in its support of innovative agricultural and renewable energy technologies.”

Located 45 miles west of Des Moines, SynGest’s $80 million facility will process 150,000 tons per day of field-dried stover (i.e., stalks, cobs, etc.) to yield 50,000 tons per day of bio-ammonia annually, plus 20 tons per day of bio-char, a valuable soil conditioning agent.
Oswald said the stover would be gathered from 75,000 acres on nearby Iowa farmland, while the bio-ammonia and bio-char would fertilize 500,000 acres under corn.

Depending on local ammonia prices, Oswald said the plant would also generate annual revenues of $25 to $35 million. Scheduled to open in 2012, the company will work with local Iowa corn growers who live within a 40-mile radius of the Guthrie County plant, which will employ about 500 plant workers and 30 office staff, he added.
According to Oswald, the stover will be fed into a pressurized oxygen-blown gasifier and converted into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

After the gas stream is cleaned, the carbon monoxide will be shifted to maximize hydrogen, which will be purified and catalytically reacted with nitrogen (from air) to make ammonia to help replenish the soil with organic ammonia and bio-char, he said.
Oswald said the plant would include an air separation system to provide oxygen for the gasifier and pure nitrogen for ammonia synthesis, with the process having already been carefully optimized to make use of all recoverable waste heat, minimizing the need for external energy supplies. He added that two major patents are pending on the process.

SynGest’s front-end engineering team includes Unitel Technologies, Alion, Eltron, PSRI and RTI, he added. While Oswald declined to disclose the name of the company’s supplier, he said a major Midwest agribusiness has agreed to supply the stover, as well as purchase and distribute the ammonia.

SynGest will be joined by POET, LLC, a 25 million gallon-per-year in Emmetsburg, Iowa, as the latest, major ethanol company to convert corn cobs into renewable energy.

On March 16, POET presented its progress toward commercializing cellulosic ethanol to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in Washington, D.C. Slated for production in 2011, POET plans to begin producing the cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs through Project LIBERTY.

Jim Sturdevant, Project LIBERTY director, said POET will receive $80 million of the project’s $200 million through the DOE’s biomass program.

“We’ve made significant progress over the last year toward commercializing cellulosic ethanol,” said.  “We’re happy to present our work to DOE, which is such a key partner in this project.”

In 2008, POET and the Iowa Power Fund Board agreed to the terms of the project’s $14.5 million contract.