‘BioTown’ conversion stalls after early push
REYNOLDS, Ind. – This one-stoplight farming hamlet had big dreams in 2005 when it was christened BioTown USA. Its goal: to become the first U.S. community to meet all electricity and gas needs through renewable energy by using everything from farm waste to sewage.
Industry and government officials led the early charge. BP installed a gas pump offering an ethanol fuel blend, and South Dakota-based VeraSun Energy Corp. started building an ethanol production plant near town.
Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns stopped by in support, as did the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Visitors also included a group of Chilean corn farmers who were touring the Midwest and interested in learning more about biofuels.
But the visitors are long gone, and many say the excitement is too. Money problems, leadership changes and other obstacles have sparked skepticism that Reynolds will ever succeed at moving the state, much less the nation, toward homegrown energy.
“I’m not happy about the whole situation, and a lot of people in town aren’t either,” said farmer Tonie Snyder. He helped provide thousands of bales of corn stover last fall that were supposed to be burned using technology that now may never be built.
From the outset, the vision for BioTown was ambitious. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and the state Department of Agriculture wanted to create a model for energy self-sufficiency. No other U.S. community produces all its own energy, and a German village that runs on renewable energy took eight years to develop.
But project officials believed they could turn this community of about 550 people, surround by silos and stubbly corn fields, into something special.
“We are taking challenges and turning them into opportunities by developing homegrown, local energy production to become independent from foreign sources,” Daniels said in announcing the project.
The timetable was aggressive. State officials hoped to break ground in November 2006 on a $10 million facility that would house the core equipment needed to turn manure and other biomass material into energy, and start generating electricity for the town by July 2007.
The groundbreaking happened, and General Motors offered deals on flex fuel vehicles to people living in the Reynolds ZIP code.
But there has been little other progress, and now BioTown leaders acknowledge they have adjusted their vision. But they insist the project will happen.
“What we try to remind folks all the time is that this project, there’s no manual that you pull out and say, ‘How do you do a BioTown?’ ” Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller said. “We’re kind of inventing it as we go.”
A couple of restaurants, car dealerships and a gas station make up most of Reynolds proper. But steady streams of truck traffic flow through town each day on state Route 43 and U.S. 24, and railroads crisscross the community. State leaders said the infrastructure and surrounding farms made Reynolds an ideal location for BioTown.
State officials said private funding would drive the project. The startup firm Rose Energy Discovery Inc. would install an anaerobic digester, a device that converts manure methane into electricity, and a gasifier would be built to create a gas that can be burned for heat or put in a boiler to make steam.
But Rose Energy dropped out last summer after failing to line up enough private investment. In October, VeraSun suspended construction on its ethanol plant due to a steep drop in ethanol prices, which combined with high corn prices has slowed factory construction around the country.
Work has not begun on the Reynolds digester.
Last fall, Snyder and his fellow farmers readied about 5,000 bales of mostly corn stover that was supposed to feed the gasifier. Months later, thousands of the unused bales collect snow and rain as they sit in a field just outside town.
The farmers finally received full payment for the bales earlier this month, Snyder said.
The new technology developer, Energy Systems Group, hasn’t decided whether to install the gasifier, so state officials say the bales will become animal bedding.
BioTown proponents say there’s still plenty going on.
Energy Systems Group, a Vectren Corp. subsidiary, will spend about $10 million on the digester and is still lining up financing for it.
President Jim Adams said he hopes to start building within the next month or so and wants to produce power by the end of this year.
“The whole process has gone a little slower than we anticipated, securing the fuel and a power purchase agreement for some of the output,” he said. “But that’s all coming together.”