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--></style><title>A "Whey" Out Idea for
Ethanol</title></head><body>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Visionaries: An interesting
article on making ethanol from whey.</blockquote>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Tom Trail</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>From: Mike & Brenda Schlepp
<farmermike@wildblue.net><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1">Hello,</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"> </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">In looking
over the last issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine there was an article
on making ethanol from "Whey". Because Idaho has become a
large player in the dairy and cheese industry I thought the work this
gentleman from Wisconsin has done might be of some
interest.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"> </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Thank
you,</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"> </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Mike
Schlepp</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Mike and
Brenda Schlepp<br>
Schlepp Seed Ranch L.L.C.<br>
26175 South Hwy. 3<br>
Cataldo, Idaho 83810<br>
208-689-3593</font></blockquote>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Van Groll
has adapted cheese-making equipment. The small square bulk milk tank
in the foreground is used for yeast propagation and the milk silo in
back is used for fermentation.</font></blockquote>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite><a
href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/issue.jsp?issue_id=83"><font
face="Arial" size="-1">From the May 2008 Issue</font></a><br>
<font face="Arial" size="-1"></font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="+2"><b>A Cheaper
‘Whey’ to Make Ethanol</b></font><br>
<font face="Arial" size="+2"><b></b></font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">A Wisconsin
cheese maker is expanding his bacteria-tending skills to include
nurturing yeast to make ethanol and growing algae to produce oil for
biodiesel in an intriguing energy-integrated, waste-to-power
process.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">By Susanne
Retka Schill, Photos by Brian Taylor</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"><br></font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">People who
visit Joe Van Groll’s ethanol plant in Stratford, Wis., typically
look around and say, “This is it? You don’t have much here.” To
which he replies, “Exactly, that’s why I can [make ethanol] so
cheap.” Van Groll has experimented with a whey-to-ethanol process
part time for more than a decade and full time for the past four
years. He believes he can produce ethanol for less than $1 per gallon.
The feedstock he uses is whey permeate, the waste product of cheese
manufacturing. Although it may sound more complicated than producing
ethanol from corn, Van Groll’s philosophy is to avoid waste and keep
things simple. The energy integration he is targeting, however, is
anything but simple. Besides turning the whey permeate into ethanol,
he separates and dries the yeast coproduct for feed; utilizes the
waste heat from fermentation and distillation for biodiesel
production; and is now demonstrating that the waste heat, water and
carbon dioxide can be used to raise oil-bearing algae for biodiesel.
He can also incorporate an anaerobic digester that turns wastes into
methane to power the process.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1"><br>
While the integration appears complex, the machinery is rather basic.
The plant relies upon the same kind of tanks and liquid transfer
systems utilized in cheese plants, Van Groll says. “The receiving
tanks for the whey permeate are milk silos, which become the
fermenters,” he says. “We make a couple of pumps do a lot of work
for us.” The major difference is the distillation system for the
ethanol process.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1"><br>
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<br>
Van Groll’s whey-to-ethanol process solves a waste disposal problem
for the cheese industry, and at the same time sidesteps some of the
criticisms regarding corn ethanol. Whey permeate is the liquid that
remains after cheese makers extract the protein from whey. Large
cheese makers dry the whey permeate and sell it as a feed supplement.
Smaller cheese plants often can’t justify the capital investment
required to purchase dryers; furthermore rising energy costs are
pushing drying costs higher. Each year the United States produces 10
billion pounds of cheese, which results in 86 billion pounds of whey
permeate. Wisconsin alone produces about 18 billion pounds of whey
annually. Because the whey permeate has a high biological oxygen
demand that requires pretreatment before it can be disposed of in
municipal water treatment facilities, much of that permeate is spread
onto farmers’ fields, with the cheese plant paying the cost. There
is a limit, however, as to how much can be dumped on a given field and
environmental regulators are beginning to restrict the practice, Van
Groll says. “My process takes a cost center and turns it into a
profit center,” he says.<br>
<br>
With 15 years in the cheese industry, Van Groll knows the issues
cheese makers are facing. During that time, he was often charged with
making arrangements for disposing of the whey permeate. That might
have been just the impetus he needed to look for new uses for the
cheese byproduct.<br>
<br>
Van Groll and a friend began to experiment by making ethanol from the
liquid waste starting with batches in 5 gallon pails in Van Groll’s
garage. Four years ago, he purchased the closed Grand Meadow Co-op
cheese plant at Stratford, Wis., to scale his project up to the next
level. He formed Grand Meadow Energy LLC to hold the intellectual
property, and DuBay Ingredients LLC owns the plant.<br>
<br>
Van Groll developed the whey-to-ethanol process with help from Clay
Boeger, his sole employee who contributed his skills as a stainless
steel fabricator to make modifications as the two developed the
processes. In their work, they established that every 100 gallons of
whey permeate at 16 percent solids will produce 8 gallons of ethanol,
8 pounds of dry yeast, 60 pounds of carbon dioxide and 16 gallons of
water. The energy spent to produce 1 gallon of ethanol is 30,000
British thermal units, according to Van Groll, which is a favorable
energy balance compared with ethanol’s 84,000 Btus per gallon.<br>
<br>
<b>Greener than Corn</b><br>
One of the criticisms directed at the corn ethanol industry is that it
takes about 3 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of ethanol. Water
isn’t an issue when it comes to Van Groll’s process. “Cheese whey
permeate is 85 percent water to start with,” he explains. No water
is added, and the water leftover from the process is recycled and used
for tank washing.<br>
<br>
Energy savings can also be achieved, particularly when the permeate
arrives from the cheese plant at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes the
cheese plants chill the permeate to 40 degrees for holding, in that
case Van Groll says to keep energy costs low the waste heat from the
distillation process should be recycled to heat the chilled permeate
before fermentation.<br>
<br>
The expense and equipment required to carry out the saccharification
process in a corn-based ethanol plant aren’t required in Van
Groll’s process because whey permeate is primarily water and
lactose—the form of sugar found in milk. While it’s considered a
difficult sugar to ferment, through trial and error Van Groll
discovered the right combination of yeasts, nutrients and conditions
to make it work. “The existing Carberry process is a 30-year-old
patent using a simple yeast strain, but it could only use 10 percent
solids with lactose. I can use up to 20 percent solids and get a
greater content of alcohol in a shorter period of time,” he
says.</font></blockquote>
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<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>Dr. Tom Trail<br>
International Trails<br>
1375 Mt. View Rd.<br>
Moscow, Id. 83843<br>
Tel: (208) 882-6077<br>
Fax: (208) 882-0896<br>
e mail ttrail@moscow.com</div>
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