Kankakee Renewable Energy plans to build near Kankakee

By Mike Lyons
[email protected]
815-937-3377

If all goes as investors hope, Kankakee Renewable Energy will be producing ethanol by late 2008.

Brent Myers of Bourbonnais, one of the principals, said last week that the firm has applied for an air-quality permit and has taken steps to site the 100-million-gallon facility near Kankakee.

The plant is expected to employ 45 to 50 people full-time and to consume about 40 million bushels of corn a year -- 6.2 million more than Kankakee County produced in 2004, a banner year.

The Kankakee Planning Board has voted to annex the site -- 197 acres owned by Leland and Carol Milk of Kankakee. The annexation still has to be approved by the city council.

Annexation will allow the plant to hook into city sewer service. Myers said Aqua Illinois has agreed to furnish water, and the nearby gas pipeline terminal at Herscher is convenient for securing the fuel the operation will need, he noted.

And of course, with a sea of corn extending throughout Kankakee and surrounding counties, Kankakee Renewable Energy thinks it has a super site, notes Myers.

The firm is one of several proposing ethanol distilleries here.

"It's a high-grain-producing area. There's probably room for two, but we hope that we're the only one," Meyers says, then laughs.

Moreover, the site offers ready access to a Class I railroad -- the Illinois Central mainline (Canadian National), enabling the shipment of product to anywhere in the U.S.

The site is the old "Country Corners" location, where Illinois 115 heads west to Herscher. It is bordered by Illinois 115 on the north, old U.S. 45 on the east and the Illinois Central Herscher spur on the south.

That's literally "across the street" from the site announced some weeks back by Alternative Energy of Kansas City, Mo. The city has already annexed this site.

American Ethanol, the third firm wanting to build an ethanol plant at Kankakee, has not announced a site.

Rodney Wrinzieryl, executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, noted that only Kankakee Renewable Energy and American Ethanol had filed for air-quality permits.

"We have applied for one," Myers said. "We hope that within 60 days we'll have it issued."

Myers is president of the State Bank of Davis, northeast of Freeport.

"I worked at National City and before that First of America and before that City National," he said of his 18 years in Kankakee banking.

Principals

Other principals, Myers noted, include Hanley Guy of Clifton, the Milks, and Weaver-Boos, a Chicago engineering firm.

"And we have GTL, a British-based company. They're currently building one of these plants in Rochelle right now," said Myers. That plant should ship its first ethanol within two months, he added.

"We think that GTL brings a lot of credibility to our group," he said of one of the few firms with experience actually building ethanol facilities.

The facility is a private venture, for now.

"At this time it's mostly private, but that's not to say we're not going to open it up for limited stockholders; but we're not sure yet.''

Myers said the facility should employ 45 to 50 people full-time and many more during construction.

Corn consumption

"The ethanol plant should bring an added benefit to local farmers.

"It's good that we can finally be using all this product that's just been leaving the area."

At a ratio of 2.5 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn, the plant would need 40 million bushels a year. Kankakee County farmers produced 33.8 million in the high-yield year of 2004.

INFO BOX:

* 100 million gallons of corn ethanol per year.

* 45-50 full-time jobs and hundreds during construction.

* 40 million bushels of corn used.

* Good roads, railway and corn supply make site outstanding, say organizers.