Press Release
Tracy, California
11/14/2013
An old crop is coming back to the Tracy,
California region. When the Holly Sugar
Co. closed its Tracy plant in 1998, it took
with it the local beet industry. An exciting
new project being built is expected to
revive this once thriving crop throughout
the region. This northern California
community will soon be the home of the
Tracy Desalination and Green Energy
Project. The Project developed because of
the City’s need to remove salt from the
effluent of its Waste Water Treatment
Plant before it is discharged into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
What does that have to do with crops?
Well, the unique design of the plant
directs the waste heat from the
desalination process to power a biofuel
(ethanol) production facility that will use
sugar beets as its feedstock. A new beet
variety called the Energy Beet™,
developed by Betaseed, produces higher
fermentable sugars, is disease resistant
and drought tolerant, making it the
perfect crop for producing biofuel.
While ethanol from corn is getting a bad
name in the environmental community
due to its high carbon footprint, ethanol
from Energy Beets™ qualifies as a low
carbon fuel for the gasoline blending
requirement that oil companies must now
meet. Making ethanol from beets is much
less CO2 intensive than from corn, or
almost anything else for that matter. The
California Air Quality Resource Board
measures CO2 output in grams of CO2 per
volume of heat input. A lower number is
best. As an example, corn ethanol
shipped to California from the Midwest
has a carbon intensity (CI) number of 91
while the ethanol that will be produced at
the Tracy Plant could have a CI number as
low as 22 because the plant captures
more CO2 than it emits. Ethanol
produced from Energy Beets™ will have a
ready market with major oil companies
and blenders.
It is anticipated that the Tracy
Desalination and Green Energy Project
will produce over 40 million gallons per
year of ethanol from approximately
1,600,000 tons of beets. It is expected that
after the plant reaches full production in
3 years, over 45,000 acres of beets will be
grown.
Energy Beets growing in Tracy in 2012
The planting scheduling, harvesting and
transporting of the beets will be under
the direction of Delta Distillers Beets
(DDB) of Tracy, California. DDB will work
with the growers to coordinate the
farming operations for the Tracy Project.
“This Project will re-introduce beets to
the area and provide the growers with a
steady and reliable source of income.”
said Nick Cartwright of DDB. The Project
is expected to buy up to $100 million
dollars annually of beets from the local
growers.
In the fall of 2012, Armando Brothers
Farms Inc planted a 300-acre trial plot of
the new Energy Beets™. “The beets were
planted and harvested in 6 months,” said
Anthony Enos of Arnaudo Bros. “The
yields were very good and ranged from
29-40 tons per acre.” The beets were
planted in the area north of the City of
Tracy.
For the harvesting of the trial plot, the
Ropa Company of Germany loaned DDB
the Ropa Tiger beet harvester, the latest
available technology in beet harvesting.
Ropa brought a team from Germany to
assist in the set up of the Tiger as well as
to train the drivers. The Tiger can harvest
an acre of beets every 8 minutes and can
hold 30 tons of beets in its hopper. DDB
was impressed with the ease and speed of
operating the Tiger and plans to purchase
3 of the harvesters for the Tracy Project.
of Tracy and Tracy Renewable Energy to
make this project a success”, said Bruce
Davis, Gemma’s Project Manager. The
Project will take approximately 14
months to construct and will involve
several companies from around the globe.
Gemma has selected Bibb Engineers from
Kansas City as the lead engineer on the
plant. The beet receiving and processing
will involve two different companies from
Germany; BMA-USA will provide the
diffusion processing equipment and
Putsch will provide the beet receiving,
washing and slicing equipment. These
two German companies have their
products in over 90% of all beetprocessing plants throughout the world.
Victory Energy of Tulsa, Oklahoma will
provide the steam generating equipment
as well as the pollution control
equipment. Victory Energy is one of
America’s leading suppliers of large-scale
steam equipment and has been involved
with the Project from the beginning.
“This Project is exciting to us because it
expands the way steam generation
equipment is used in the ethanol
industry”, said Victory’s CEO John Viskup.
Mario Arnaudo with the Ropa Tiger beet
harvester
The Project will be built by Gemma Power
Systems California, Inc. Gemma is a
leading EPC (engineering, procurement,
and construction) contractor in America
with strong experience in building power
generation facilities as well as ethanol,
biodiesel and solar and wind projects.
“This is a very exciting project for us and
we look forward to working with the City
The Project has taken several twists and
turns to reach its present state. It began
as a desalination and biomass power
plant two years ago, but because the
Project was not able to negotiate a power
purchase agreement with PG&E, a new
solution was needed. By redesigning the
plant to use Energy Beets™ for the
production of ethanol, the once vibrant
sugar beet industry will have new life.
Now with 75% of the design and
engineering complete, the Project is
picking up speed day by day.
Funding for the Project will come from
private sources. The Project will not rely
on grants or government money. Jim
Gibbs of Sperry Capital is the Financial
Manager and has put together a highly
skilled and experienced team to handle
the investment and banking components
of the Project. “This project is very
attractive to the investment community
due to its positive environmental aspects,
its community based nature and its
healthy revenue streams”, said Mr. Gibbs.
“We have worked long and hard to bring
the best of the best to this, the most
modern and efficient design possible. We
are nearing the completion of the
engineering process and are very happy
with the results”, remarked Al Knapp, the
Tracy Project Manager.
The Project is slated to begin construction
in the early spring of 2014 with the first
planting of beets scheduled for the fall of
2014. The plant is expected to begin
operations in the summer of 2015. The
plant will provide employment for over
100 locals with over 300 trades people
hired during the build out.
“This is the right project, in the right place
at the right time. It could only happen in
Tracy!”, said Leon Churchill, Tracy’s City
Manager. “The Project has strong support
from the City of Tracy, the local
politicians, major oil companies, the local
trade unions and the farming community
and we welcome this type of innovation
in Tracy.”
For more information about the Project
contact:
Al Knapp
Project Manager
Tracy Renewable Energy, LLC
Cell: 913-219-6613
E-mail: [email protected]