Verbio Commences Operations at Iowa Biorefinery

by Erin Voegele (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Verbio announced on Dec. 8 it has commenced production of renewable natural gas (RNG) at its biorefinery in Nevada, Iowa. The company acquired the former cellulosic ethanol plant from DuPont in 2018. The facility is producing RNG from corn straw using Verbio technology.

“Our biorefinery plant is now pumping biomethane into the gas network of Alliant Energy, a public utility company, so that it can be transported by pipeline to be sold across the nation to transport companies and at CNG filling stations,” said Greg Faith, managing director of Verbio Nevada LLC. “This is a big day for us and for our partners in the agricultural sector. We would like to thank the city of Nevada, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the Des Moines Area Community College and Alliant Energy, who have supported us in completing our project.”

Verbio is already working to expand the facility. An initial phase of expansion will boost the facility’s production capacity to 20 megawatts (MW), according to Verbio, allowing it convert 100,000 metric tons of straw into RNG. By the end of 2022, the company plans to expand the biorefinery further for combined ethanol-biomethane production. READ MORE

Excerpt from Successful Farming: One of the Iowa’s most abundant resources – corn “stover” – is being used to create renewable natural gas that heats Iowa homes and businesses.

As of this month, the Verbio North America plant in Nevada, Iowa, has been converting chopped cornstalks into natural gas that enters an Alliant Energy pipeline that traverses central Iowa.

Using anaerobic digestion, eight large digesters combine the corn stover with the bacteria of livestock manure, which results in the conversion of corn residue into biomethane gas that is equivalent to the natural gas found in fossil fuels.

Also called corn fodder or crop residue, the stover is nutrient rich but also poses a challenge for farmers when they go to plant the following year’s crop.

“Farmers here in Iowa, as the yields have gone up, are faced with additional stover left on the field, and many do additional tillage just to get that stover to decompose and degrade,” Arora says. “There has been a need to do something with that stover for many, many years.”

After the corn is harvested, Verbio employees condense the stover on contracted fields into large square bales that are easy to move and stack. Verbio typically removes about 50% of the corn stover, which reduces the need for tillage and allows some farmers to pursue no-till planting by reducing the amount of residue left on the surface.

Farmers are paid $8 per bale, and the equipment and labor are supplied by Verbio. The company contracted about 6,000 acres this year and hopes to expand to 30,000 acres in 2022.

The end result is a renewable source of energy with multiple environmental benefits.

“We’re taking the carbon degradation that would go up into the atmosphere, we’re capturing that, we’re scrubbing it, and we’re allowing you to heat your home with it locally,” Ron DeJongh, president of Verbio Agriculture says.

Verbio bought the plant from DuPont about two years ago. Original plans were to produce ethanol from the stover, but those plans did not come to fruition.

In addition to natural gas – the primary product – the process yields a nutrient-rich by-product called humus, which serves as a soil amendment and organic fertilizer. READ MORE