Marshall Democrat-News: Local News: Community members meet to hear about biorefinery project (05/18/09)

Editor's note: This article, the first in a series of articles detailing the information presented during the Saline Green Project town hall meeting Saturday, May 16, gives a brief overview of the meeting. Other articles, which will come later this week, will focus on the messages of individual presenters.

Several community members and leaders met with representatives of, and those involved with, Saline Green Project Saturday, May 16, to hear about the specifics surrounding the biorefinery manufacturing complex SGP plans to build in Saline County.

"We need more power" as a nation, said Terry Maglich, Community and Economic Development manager at Missouri Department of Economic Development. "There's probably not going to be one way of meeting all those needs, there's going to be a number of ways, and one of them ... is going to be through green energy."

Marshall Saline Development Corporation Executive Director Roy Hunter spoke about the prospects of job creation this complex will offer, saying that in addition to the 75 jobs inside the complex, it will create "an awful lot of jobs for an awful lot of people that are not going to be directly associated" with the complex in such duties as growing the massive amounts of raw materials needed, as well as transporting those materials to the complex.

Pure Energy Corporation President and CEO Dr. Irshad Ahmed, who has worked for the last 15 years on improving the production of cellulosic ethanol, also addressed those present, explaining the financial incentives for this project that come in the form of grants, loans, tax write-offs and subsidies.

He also spoke about additional benefits the production process will offer, such as creation of furfural, which is used in a variety of products including fiberglass and automotive brakes, and the use of methane from landfills and even newer garbage to create green electricity.

"Waste becomes a renewable energy source," said the narrator of a video Ahmed showed after he spoke.

Jordan Soloman, managing director at Ecostrat Inc., told attendees about the opportunity local farmers will have to grow a grass called Miscanthus giganteus. This grass will be used in the production of cellulosic ethanol during the project's second phase.

This grass, he said, grows readily in less-favorable soils with no fertilizers or pesticides, and even rehabilitates the land to the point that corn will grow in that soil after 10 years or so of Miscanthus giganteus growth.

Contact Geoff Rands at marshallreporter@socket.net