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| Source: | LOHAS Weekly Newsletter |
| Published: | Friday, December 30, 2005 |
‘‘I expect significant expansion here,” Richard Griffin, the city’s director of economic development, said at a ceremony last month marking BP’s expansion. ‘‘But how has not been quantified. I would like to see Frederick and Maryland become the leaders in the country in solar credits and production.”
Griffin said his agency ‘‘is very excited about the prospect of Frederick and Maryland leading the way in alternative renewable energy incentives, particularly solar, for a number of reasons.”
Maryland has what Griffin calls a ‘‘technology-based knowledge economy” that can be at the forefront of research and development of new technologies and that includes the development and cultivation of alternative renewable energy resources.
‘‘It makes good business sense to invest in technology that will reduce dependence on traditional power sources,” Griffin said. ‘‘The cost of energy is increasing significantly, making renewable sources like solar more competitive.”
While Griffin is primarily eyeing solar power, Colby Ferguson, an agricultural specialist with the Frederick County Office of Economic Development, is working to bring biodiesel manufacturing to the county, an industry that would benefit the county’s soybean farmers.
‘‘I have received several inquiries on biodiesel production,” Ferguson said. ‘‘Most of the businesses are looking for available space to start up a small manufacturing facility [of] approximately 1 [million] to 2 million gallons per year.”
Ferguson said he is also working with Windridge Farm, owned by the Butz family, which is planning to build a soybean-crushing facility — and possibly a plant to convert extracted soy oil into biodiesel.
‘‘They have already received a special exception from Planning and Zoning and are now preparing to build the crushing facility,” Ferguson said.
Such a facility could have a profound impact on the state’s soybean farmers, he said.
‘‘For many years now, Maryland has been a soybean-abundant state, but a soybean meal-deficit state,” he said. ‘‘Meaning, we produce a lot of soybeans but have very little ability to crush them and make soybean meal. Maryland soybean farmers sell their soybeans for a reduced price — the beans are railed out to the Midwest — while the Maryland livestock and poultry producers buy soybean meal at a retail price with the meal railed in from the Midwest.”
Jeremy Butz, who co-owns and works Windridge Farm in Adamstown with his brothers, explained how Maryland farmers could benefit from a local crushing plant.
‘‘If Chicago is listing soy at $5 per bushel, buyers might be paying between 30 and 50 cents less” than that, partly due to transportation costs, Butz said.
Also, most soy feed products coming out of Maryland are bought by Perdue, he said, and without market competition, the poultry giant is able to name its price.
‘‘Most of the soy [produced in Maryland] is hauled to Keymar, loaded onto trains, and shipped to Perdue,” Butz said.
Butz said the original idea behind the plant was to process local beans into commercial grade soy flour. Now, the idea is to sell the meal as meal for either further processing, or as feed for livestock, and to sell the processed oils for biodiesel production, or produce it themselves, Ferguson said.
‘‘This will be a whole new market for soy farmers,” Butz said.
Butz said he doesn’t have specific revenue and cost projections. The plant ‘‘will be more profitable than farming, but I’m still not sure of what the margin will be,” he said.
While the Butz brothers and Ferguson are still seeking $50,000 for a feasibility study on the plant, Butz is hoping to have the facility ready to process the 2006 crop.
‘‘We have a long way to go in funding,” he said. ‘‘We also have final site approval, breaking ground.”
Ferguson is working on financing the project, which could cost between $5 million and $10 million. ‘‘The $10 million would include the biodiesel production facility,” he said.
‘‘Since this is not a county project, but a single-farm project, they are not eligible for a lot of the state funding,” Ferguson said. ‘‘We are trying to work with the Maryland Soybean Board, Maryland Department of Agriculture and some other agencies to try to get the funding.”
Ferguson can see Windridge benefiting from government involvement, but through contracts, not a subsidy.
‘‘It may be more appropriate for [the government] to contract biodiesel from a farmer-owned plant for fleet vehicles such as school buses, county and state highway vehicles, and mass-transit vehicles,” Ferguson said. ‘‘This type of state and county buy-in is exactly what Windridge Farm is asking for. They need a solid buyer of the biodiesel to make their operation work. This would allow the government to help out the farmer, and it wouldn’t be through a government subsidy.”
The plant is not a lock for Windridge — 2,200 acres planted in roughly half corn and half soy in Frederick and Montgomery counties — or even one of those counties, Butz said.
‘‘We are looking at a host of locations,” he said. ‘‘The farm is the most appealing place ... but it may be out of Frederick County, but still in the vicinity,” including Carroll, Howard or Washington counties.
Butz said he and his brothers would seek investment from other soy farmers; they expect 90 percent of the plant’s beans to come from other farms.
The operation would be small, Ferguson said — ‘‘no more than five or ten employees.”
‘‘With that type of facility there’s not a lot of manual labor,” he said. ‘‘The brothers could probably run it themselves.”
Ferguson said the time is ripe for a soy-to-biodiesel plant.
‘‘I think Hurricane Katrina opened the eyes to a lot of people on how dependent we are on foreign oil,” he said. ‘‘One thing to remember: We cannot use biodiesel and ethanol as a complete substitute for oil, but we can use renewable fuels to lessen the need for foreign oil and extend the time that is needed to discover the next-generation fuel source that will replace oil.”