Soy Innovation Campus to Co-locate with New Minn. Biodiesel Plant

by Ron Kotrba (Biodiesel Magazine) The Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council plans to co-locate its new Soy Innovation Campus with Epitome Energy LLC’s proposed 30 MMgy biodiesel production and soybean crush facility in Northwest Minnesota.

Earlier this year, Epitome Energy was awarded a $450,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation for new rail infrastructure at an industrial site in Crookston, Minnesota, which will facilitate transportation of soybeans, meal, oil, biodiesel and methanol to and from the site. The crush facility will be scaled to process 65,000 bushels of soybeans per day.

“The feasibility of this project depends on access to adequate rail infrastructure serving the site,” Epitome Energy wrote in its grant application to MNDOT. Regional short line operator Minnesota Northern Railroad wrote a letter to MNDOT in support of the Epitome Energy project late last year. Both MSR&PC and Otter Tail Power Co. have committed financial support to Epitome Energy’s project.

In addition to being co-located with Epitome Energy’s large-scale crush and biodiesel plant, MSR&PC’s Soy Innovation Campus will feature a specialty soybean extraction plant and specialty oil refining operation.

“The Soy Innovation Campus will be home to an ever-expanding network of classrooms, laboratories and private industries designed to create green-based products from coproducts produced in the four facilities,” said Tom Slunecka, CEO of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. “The small crush facility will be owned by a nonprofit. Its mission will be to operate the small crush and small oil refining facility, giving opportunities to projects that are in a holding position between benchtop research and full commercialization.”

Some of the product developments anticipated to come out of the Soy Innovation Campus are high-oleic soybeans; low-allergenicity soybeans; high-protein soybeans; biobased road sealants, paints and seal coat; and feed manufacturing. READ MORE

Excerpt from Crookston Times: As stakeholders, officials and community leaders scramble to best prepare for a possible visit to Crookston next week by the Minnesota Senate Capital Investment Committee to see for themselves what the proposed Epitome Energy soybean crush/biodiesel facility here is all about, Epitome’s founder and CEO is doing his best to refute claims that the estimated $160 million project is being invested in an industry that has few if any long-term prospects for success, much less survival.

Dennis Egan attended the latest meeting of an advisory committee that has been meeting frequently over the past few months with the task of putting as many ducks in a row as possible related to the Epitome Energy initiative. Near the end of the latest session at Valley Technology Park - at which a pending state bonding request of the 2020 Minnesota Legislature was discussed along with numerous other topics, such as establishing a tax-increment-financing (TIF) district - Ward 4 City Council Member Don Cavalier said he thought it was important for Egan to address the many questions raised by Brian LaPlante, who, for the past two weeks has been very public and very vocal in voicing his concerns about the long-term viability of the biofuels industry and, thus, Epitome Energy in Crookston.

(After an enthusiastic debate, the city council Monday night voted 5-2 to delay LaPlante’s presentation, which approaches 40 pages in length, after, at the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Guy Martin resigned and walked out due in large part to his shared concerns about the Epitome Energy project.)

While there currently is a “federal hiccup” in relation to the biofuels market and ethanol specifically in regard to Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS), Egan said the market for another byproduct of soybean crushing, the soybean meal, is strong. “The protein side is not going away,” he said.

One of the primary reasons, he noted, that Epitome is seeking in the permitting process double the crush capacity of the initial vision - 42 million bushels versus 21 million - is to be strategically positioned for opportunities that may present themselves in the future, and stave off current and future competition.

“Geographically, northwest Minnesota for a number of reasons...it’s a facility that would be at a competitive advantage (when it comes to moving soybean meal to customers from Minnesota to Canada to California and globally)” Egan continued. READ MORE