LaRayne Meyer, Contributing Editor

E³ BioFuels Complex near Mead, Neb., is a cattle-feeding triad in more ways than one. Or two. Or three. E³ BioFuels combines th ree major operations – an ethanol plant, an anaerobic digester and a cattle feedlot – into one, using manure from feedlot cattle as the energy source to make ethanol. In a self-sustained, closed-loop system, methane gas from a cattle-feeding operation will be used at the site to generate power, corn and grain will contribute to the manufacture of ethanol, and cattle will be fed wet distiller’s grain from the ethanol production.

The new $45 million operation currently under construction has a big job on its hands. Not only is the system expected to dispose of manure on site in a way that reduces expenses typically associated with a concentrated animal-feeding operation, but it will convert manure from an expensive liability to an economic and environmental benefit, as well.

Because the E³ BioFuels complex will run on energy generated within its own system, it will eliminate 95 to 100 percent of the fossil fuels required to operate a conventional ethanol plant. A selling point of E³ BioFuels to the Mead community is the fact that the business anticipates employing approximately 70 people, a major boost to the local economy. About 80 percent of these jobs will require no specialized experience or education. Also, E³ will purchase more than 8 million bushels of corn locally each year for the production of more than 24 million gallons of ethanol, also a boon to local corn growers. Ethanol continues to find a market among consumers interested in lessening the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

The solid waste management facility will dispose of manure from the facility’s feedlot, along with thin stillage, a waste from ethanol production, in operation of the ethanol plant. The combination of manure and thin stillage will increase the efficiency of the facility’s anaerobic digester. Heat from the ethanol plant will help to maintain the appropriate temperature in the digester to an optimal 99 degrees. The digester will produce both natural fertilizers, which will be sold to local farmers as compost, aqueous ammonia and lime, as well as biogas, a combination of methane, carbon dioxide and trace levels of other gases produced by the decomposition of organic matter, used in the production of ethanol. In addition, the digester is expected to help control odor.

Wet distiller’s grain, also known as “wet cake” and a by-product of ethanol production, will be fed to cattle in the feedlot, eliminating drying, spoilage and transportation-related costs.

Although the concept is experimental – not tried on this size scale before anywhere else in the world – the design depends largely on a feedlot and mill that have been successfully in existence since 1969. The digester and ethanol plant are being added to a confinement feedlot built for the benefit of cattle, not the feed truck, according to Mark “Bump” Kraeger, senior vice president of E³ BioFuels.

The feed alley is located outside the building, not inside, as was the case with some confinement barns that were built in the 1970s and failed, Kraeger said. The buildings are open to the south, where cattle receive shade in the summer and sun in the winter. Manure from pits beneath the barns is currently pumped to a holding lagoon before being spread on fields, but in March the manure will be pumped directly to a digester when startup for the new operation takes place in stages.

The possibility of incorporating the three operations into one has been researched for the past decade, the brainchild of Dave Hallberg of Omaha and the late Vic Schlesenger. Holding a patent for the process in 2002, early work on the project began in the 1990s, and work began in earnest in 2003. The founder of Renewable Fuels Association, a national organization dedicated to ethanol production, Hallberg has been involved in politics that apply to renewable fuel on a worldwide level. The two men approached Terry Klopfenstein, professor of ruminant nutrition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to ask about the probability of making their plan work.

“It’s been an intriguing idea and a good idea conceptually,” Klopfenstein said. “It’s also a big experiment.” The cattle-feeding operation already in existence at Mead had been successful, lessening the financial risk, and it was known that ethanol plants operate well. Less was known about methane generators, which have been used more widely overseas than in the United States, he explained. The advantages of the project were “potentially large.”

As the three men began to look at the project more closely, Klopfenstein noted that there were three focuses of the project initially: minimizing the input of fossil fuel for both economic and environmental reasons, locating the ethanol plant at the existing Mead Cattle Company feedlot to eliminate transportation and drying costs of the manure, and the environmental effects of positive cattle waste management.

It was also a timely project since producers who feed cattle in confinement operations and open feedlots alike have to answer to recent, strict EPA regulations to eliminate possible contamination of water sources near large-scale feedlots, taking effect in January of 2007.

“Concerns about open feedlots, dangers to water, and ways to collect runoff have come to the forefront,” Klopfenstein said. “Although concrete’s not cheap, the E³ BioFuels advantage is that it is built on an existing, successful, confinement feedyard.” For an operation like E³ BioFuels to exist, it needs clean manure, without all the dirt scraped up while cleaning open feedlots, and that is found in the pits beneath confinement buildings.

Manure from the operation’s nine, half-mile-long buildings will be handled by the on-site solid waste management facility without incurring usual animal waste storage and disposal costs. In addition, the process enables removal of nitrogen and phosphorus from the manure. A 30,000-head confinement operation would require 40,000 acres on which to spread the resulting manure; however, with the E³ BioFuels waste processing measures, only 800 acres are needed.

E³ BioFuels has definite advantages that allow it to operate more cost efficiently than its individual components would alone. The size of the ethanol plant and solid waste management facility that will coexist with the feedlot will be managed so that no component of the closed loop system will produce more waste or require more fuel than can be handled or supplied by the rest of the complex.

Managed by a board of directors, E³ BioFuels is a small, closely held outfit at this time, according to Kraeger, with the possibility of expanding its concept across the state or the nation. Based in the center of the country at Omaha, Neb., the E³ Bio/Fuels Solution is as easy as one, two, three.