Closed-loop ethanol system

At the Genesis plant the patented closed-loop ethanol system produces energy by combining manure, collected from an adjacent 28,000-head cattle feedlot, with thin stillage, a cellulosic byproduct of ethanol refining. The hot liquid mixture is decomposed inside an anaerobic digester, where bacteria extract methane-rich biogas that is used to fire the plant's ethanol boilers. Traditional ethanol refineries are fueled by coal or natural gas.The leftover grain is fed wet to the cattle at the nearby feedlot, whose manure in turn powers the plant and creates high-quality fertilizer as a byproduct. Traditional ethanol plants have to invest in expensive, energy-intensive equipment to dry this leftover grain to prevent spoilage, and then transport it to far-off farms to use as feed. The on-site cows are treated to fresh wet cake from the nearby plant, thus avoiding both the cost and fossil fuel pollution of drying and transporting the grain.

Greenhouse gases are reduced by capturing the methane gas, which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing global warming, that the decomposing manure would release to the atmosphere if it were not used in the process. By recycling livestock manure into biogas energy, the system eliminates a major component of the No. 1 source of water pollution in the United States: agricultural runoff.

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