Hits: 1
Plans Announced to build Ethanol Plant near Flagstaff, Arizona
August 23rd, 2007 12:01am by: flagstaffcvb
Flagstaff, AZ (OPENPRESS)
Dave and Diane Williamson of Mogollon Brewing Company and Arizona High Spirits Distillery, recently announced plans to open an ethanol plant in northern Arizona near Flagstaff.
Under the name Earth Friendly Fuels, the plant will produce between 50 – 59 million gallons of ethanol fuel per year, which is expected to reduce the United States’ dependency on foreign oil by that same amount. One of the proposed sites for the ethanol plant is an under-utilized military base located just outside of Flagstaff.
The ethanol plant would start out using the traditional corn-to-ethanol process and then convert to cellulosic-ethanol once the technology is at a point making the new process economically viable.
“The ethanol would be sold to the state of Arizona where it will be blended with unleaded gasoline reducing toxic engine emissions by 22 – 36 percent, depending on the vehicle,” said Diane Williamson, president of Earth Friendly Fuels.
Earth Friendly Fuels has teamed up with Arizona Forest Restoration Products to use the discarded wood from the largest forest restoration project ever proposed in the United States history to help power the proposed ethanol plant.
“This would also improve our local and national economy as this project would provide approximately 58 jobs between the ethanol plant and biomass power plant and hundreds of other jobs related to the project,” said Williamson.
Plans for a brewery and distillery expansion into an eco-industrial park, will allow them to take waste steam from the biomass power plant to generate their own electricity. The steam would then be used to conduct the brewing and distillation processes.
“This would give the brewery and distillery a zero carbon footprint, a first in the brewing and distillation industries,” said Williamson.
Mogollon Brewing Co. became one of the first microbreweries in the nation to enter the craft distillation movement. They successfully amended a federal law to allow beer and spirit production in the same building, thus opening the door for other microbreweries throughout the nation to do the same. They changed the law in Arizona making distillation legal. And just recently amended another Arizona law which will allow them to sell the spirits they make at the brewery within the same establishment.
Dave Williamson
Mogollon Brewing Company
Arizona High Spirits Distillery
15 N. Agassiz St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001