Ethanol plant coming near Greenville

Image by flickr user crabchickImage by 20080709barley.jpg Barley. More of it could be flowing through South Carolinians' engines soon. [gmap markers=blue::34.59930237746263,-81.463623046875 |zoom=6 |center=33.7243396617476,-80.771484375 |width=220px |height=220px |control=Small |type=Map]

S.C. is getting its first ethanol plant in Carlisle. The $161.5 million barley-based ethanol plant will be built by Osage Bio Energy and will employ 75. It should open in 2009.

Observant readers are no doubt asking, why barley? The Union Daily Times answers:
The most important difference is that the Carlisle facility will use regionally-produced barley, not corn, to make ethanol. Unlike corn, the barley used by the Carlisle plant will be grown in the winter exclusively for ethanol production and will not compete with food crops for land. According to the OBE website some 5 million acres of farmland in the Mid-Atlantic and southeast are unproductive each year during winter.

The company plans to create some 60 million gallons of ethanol a year (at $4 a gallon, that's $240 million worth of gas).

But, this is just one of many biofuel plants announced for South Carolina in recent years. Most of them are planned for the upstate, as is a biofuel distribution center.

Other companies have announced plans for smaller biofuel plants in Hampton, Aiken, Laurens and Anderson counties, and a biofuel distribution center is planned in Anderson County.

Filed in