Plant That Brewed Beer Shifts Attention to Ethanol

[JohnWxy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/nyregion/23ethanol.html


( This is an example of production capacity being added at a bargain price.__JW)


Sometimes Rick O'Shea still hears the beer bottles clanking in the shadows of the old Miller Brewing plant here, where he worked until the place closed more a decade ago.

Now he is the engineering director of a project aiming to turn the ghostly, 420-acre complex into the Northeast's first ethanol production plant, churning biofuel out of the massive vats that once brewed Miller Lite.

"Every vessel you see is going to be reused," said Mr. O'Shea, 50, standing in the darkened plant's west brewhouse before two stainless steel kettles, each large enough to hold 45,000 gallons of beer. "We've got fermentation tanks, we've got cooking vessels, that's what lured the ethanol project here."

With gas costing $3 a gallon in many parts of the country and much of the oil producing world in turmoil, the lure of homegrown fuel is a powerful one. Gov. George E. Pataki is intent on making the state the vanguard of ethanol production in the Northeast, and the Fulton plant is one of the projects in the region that is closest to fruition.

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The project could bring some jobs back to a region that has seen an exodus of both people and manufacturing work. The Miller plant, which once employed 1,200 people, is on a stretch of land abutted by Interstate 481 and the Oswego River, as well as train tracks that would carry corn from the Midwest.
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There are already more than four million cars and trucks on the road that have the option of running on a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, known as E85, but only roughly 500 gas stations in the nation sell it. In the Northeast, there are no public gas stations where you can buy E85.

That will soon change. Governor Pataki, whose government-issued Chevrolet Suburban runs on E85, recently put in place an initiative to bring ethanol and other alternative fuels to the service stations on the New York State Thruway, beginning this year.

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[Inland]

1. D'OH! nt

[tuvor]

2. Oh. THAT kind of plant.

Damn.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. ho humm, junkie scraps last bits of powder

into spoon for last fix

film at 11