WisBusiness: Flambeau Biofuels could begin production in 2011

By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com

Flambeau River BioFuels President Bob Byrne says his company could have its biorefinery in Park Falls up in running by the spring of 2011, now that the U.S. Department of Energy has said it will pitch in $30 million to fund the project.

Byrne said the biorefinery, which will produce around 6 million gallons of sulfur-free diesel fuel annually from forest and agriculture sources, was budgeted at $84 million last year. But the rising cost of steel and other construction materials will likely push it over the $100 million mark, he said.

The biorefinery will be built beside Flambeau River Papers. In addition to diesel fuel, it will generate at least 1 trillion BTUs per year of process heat that will be sold to the paper plant, making it the first integrated pulp and paper mill in North America to be fossil fuel free.

Byrne said he and other company officials will meet with Department of Energy officials in Golden, Colo. next week to negotiate how quickly the company will receive the money.

“We were prepared to go forward without the DOE grant and we’d applied for it twice before,” he said. “But this is great because it shows we have been vetted by the DOE. It validates the technology and that’s a big boost besides the funding.”

See release: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.Iml?Article=131125