ICM, Inc. Guarantees Food AND Fuel Production in 2010
ICM, Inc. today announced that ethanol biorefineries investing in the company’s new, proprietary and innovative technology before the end of this year, will be capable of commercially producing both food and fuel in 2010. The announcement was made during ICM’s customer meeting at the annual Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW) in Nashville, Tenn.
“We are talking about the ‘ethanol biorefinery of the future’…and very near future at that,” said Dave Vander Griend, founder, president and CEO. “Fifty years ago, the U.S. fed the world. We will be able to do that again with a food supply brought about by the evolution of ethanol production.”
Since the company’s founding, ICM’s mission has been to sustain agriculture through innovation. Recently, the company’s mission expanded to researching ways to deliver much-needed protein to the world, by way of ethanol processing. At the same time, the corn-to-ethanol industry is maturing, and a changing economic outlook is prompting existing biorefineries to explore means of maintaining financial success in challenging tight-ethanol, high-corn price markets. ICM recognized this changing outlook and is delivering on its mission by developing technology to create “new renewables” that can be built upon the existing ethanol biorefinery – the key facilitator of the new technology is a process called dry fractionation.
Vander Griend says dry fractionation, the first component of ICM’s new six-part Food AND Fuel(TM) technology package, can be installed as early as the fourth quarter of this year, with production coming on line in the second quarter of 2009.
After cleaning and moisture conditioning, the proprietary dry fractionation process mechanically separates the corn kernel into its three main components: endosperm (the starchy portion comprising most of the inner kernel), germ (the protein- and oil-rich center) and bran (the kernel’s fibrous outer layer). More than just producing ethanol, optimizing the whole kernel in this way allows for the production of a host of food-grade and feed-grade co-products, as well as another alternate fuel source to power the process.
In addition to new food-processing capabilities, ICM’s new technology offering also provides several other advantages for biorefineries:
— a guaranteed increase in ethanol production capacity
— reduced natural gas consumption
— decreased enzyme usage
— a platform for emerging technologies
— a bridge to cellulosic ethanol
ICM installed their first Food AND Fuel(TM) technology package at a biorefinery in St. Joseph, Mo. This facility, LifeLine Foods, is the proving ground for ICM’s “ethanol biorefinery of the future” package, which includes the technology to transform corn fiber to cellulosic ethanol.
“Our situation is a little different than that of the typical ICM customer because we were a food processor first,” says Mike Sobetski, vice president and COO, LifeLine Foods. “Prior to partnering with ICM, more than 70 percent of our revenue came from food production. Co-products such as livestock feed and germ accounted for the remaining nearly 30 percent. Today, two-thirds of our revenue is generated by ethanol and its co-products, and higher-quality food products comprise the remaining one-third. Even with this shift, we are generating more revenue from the-now-30-percent food production than we were with 70 percent because of the increased capacities and the synergies of the new processes brought to us by ICM.”
Based on the implementation and output happening at LifeLine, ICM has created a preliminary economic model to outline the adoption of the new six-part Food AND Fuel(TM) technology package. By opening new markets for various co-products, there is the potential for $1 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.
“We have always believed that ethanol is part of the solution to our economic, energy and environmental issues and this is what we are doing to make ethanol better. We can now make food during the ethanol process, we can process ethanol in an efficient and more environmentally-friendly way, and we can help retain more of our energy dollars in the U.S. while creating new markets for diversified global agriculture” said Vander Griend.
About Ethanol and Ethanol Processing
Ethanol is commercially produced in one of two ways, using either the wet mill or dry mill process. Wet milling involves separating the grain kernel into its component parts (fiber, protein, and starch) prior to fermentation. ICM-designed plants utilize a proprietary dry mill process, where the entire grain kernel is ground into flour. The starch in the flour is converted to ethanol during the fermentation process, while also producing carbon dioxide and dried distillers grains (DDGS) as co-products. The carbon dioxide can be captured (where economics allow) so it can be marketed to the food processing industry for use in carbonated beverages and flash-freezing applications. Distillers grains are a valuable livestock feed.
Ethanol is delivering on its promise as a renewable fuel. It is good for American vehicles, it is good for the environment and it is good for the American economy.
— Environment. Ethanol is a clean-burning, renewable fuel. E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, is the cleanest burning fuel available on the market today. The use of gasoline enriched with 10 percent ethanol, E10, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 12 to 19 percent compared with conventional gasoline, according to Argonne National Laboratory. E10 also reduces carbon monoxide emissions by as much as 30 percent
— Economy. Ethanol is blended into nearly 50 percent of the U.S. fuel supply, mostly as E10 and E85, cutting more than 140,000 barrels a day of foreign oil imports. In fact, for every barrel of ethanol produced, 1.2 barrels of petroleum is displaced at the refinery. That means more than $6.6 billion a year is staying in the U.S. economy (Energy Information Administration). Ethanol is made from crops grown in America, primarily corn and milo, helping sustain the American farmer. The U.S. ethanol industry supported the creation of more than 230,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy in 2007, adding $12.3 billion into the pockets of American consumers.
— Vehicles. Ethanol is the highest-performance fuel on the market, with an octane rating of 113 in its pure form. Because it contains more oxygen, ethanol-enriched fuel burns cleaner, helping to remove gummy deposits in the fuel system so engines can run with optimal performance. Ethanol-blended fuels also burn cleaner and at a cooler temperature, which can add to engine longevity.
For more information, please visit www.drivingethanol.org.
Sources include: the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, the Renewable Fuels Association, the Clean Fuels Development Coalition and the Energy Information Administration.
About ICM, Inc.
ICM, Inc., a privately-held company headquartered in Colwich, Kan., engineers, builds, and supports renewable fuels biorefineries around the world. The company’s founders have been trailblazing the processing of ethanol since the 1970s – receiving the first commercial fuel ethanol manufacturing permit issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ICM was founded in 1995 by Dave Vander Griend and a small team of talented engineers and skilled craftsmen who shared the core belief that, in the ethanol industry, things could be done more efficiently, safer, and with greater returns. Backed by the strength of hundreds of employees, ICM is focused on sustaining agriculture through innovation. ICM is the ethanol industry’s leading technology provider, behind more than four billion gallons of ethanol production per year, nearly half of the existing U.S. production capacity. Additionally, ICM has spurred the development of an extensive research and development department – continuously testing and retesting to refine process efficiencies – and the company’s top scientists also are exploring economically-feasible, cellulose-based ethanol production processes. For more information, please visit www.icminc.com.
Food AND Fuel is a trademark of ICM, Inc.