Trash to ethanol industry to meet in Chicago

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

CHICAGO — Powers Energy, the company planning a $285 million trash-to-ethanol plant in Schneider, is slated as one of 20 featured speakers at Municipal Solid Waste to Biofuels Summit 2011, a how-to event focusing on the emerging biofuels industry.

The two-day summit, set for today and Friday at the Wyndham Hotel, is drawing 120 attendees from around the country and internationally, said Oliver Saunders, international event director for Eye For Energy, organizer for the summit, based in London.

“We looked through the market last year,” Saunders said. “We have a massive interest in renewable energy and this is one of the new areas we’re looking at, turning waste into a valuable commodity.”

Some of the foremost names in the industry are scheduled to attend, including Waste Management, Cascadia, Coskata, Covanta, Ineos Bio, the United States Department of Energy and the Ohio EPA Division of Solid Waste Management, Saunders said.

Eye for Energy chose Chicago, Saunders said, because some of the biggest companies involved in trash-to-biofuel, like Coskata, are based in the Chicago area. “But the main thing was about geography, in the sense that we wanted to go after big populations, like Chicago, because they tend to be the ones with huge amounts of waste and pressure on the local government that they don’t have to simply landfill their waste.”

Earl Powers, who is scheduled to speak Friday, said he plans to speak about his company’s license with Ineos and its 25-year-contract to receive Lake County’s trash.

Ineos, another scheduled speaker, is providing the blueprint from its Indian River, Fla., plant to Powers to use in its permit application to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for its planned plant in Schneider.

“We need about 20 permits,” Powers said. Once his company applies for permits, IDEM will schedule public hearings before it considers granting them.

Ineos, the third largest chemical company in the world, runs a pilot plant in Arkansas, a miniature version of what Powers’ garbage-to-ethanol plant will be. Powers has purchased the rights to use Ineos’ patented process to turn garbage into ethanol.

Ineos Bio broke ground Wednesday on its $130 million Indian River BioEnergy plant, touted as the world’s first commercial-scale facility in the United States to manufacture advanced (cellulosic) biofuels using its patented technology.

Beginning next summer the plant will produce eight million gallons of bioethanol a year and six megawatts of renewable energy power using a combination of yard, vegetative and household wastes.

Reach Diane Krieger Spivak at 648-30760