Ethanol revolution brews in Hawaii?

• Ethanol revolution brews in Hawaii?

• Web exclusive posted March 21, 2008 An Australian living in Hawaii claims that by using a combination of innovations, he has developed a system that will profoundly change the ethanol industry. Stephen Finch said his setup will eliminate the need for distillation columns, the most energy-intensive step in ethanol production. Finch worked as an engineer for the Manildra Group, the largest ethanol producer in Australia, for 12 years and six of those years also producing di-methyl ether. He has moved to Hawaii and now works with Value Added Foods and Fuels LLC, a manufacturer of dried tropical fruit powders and other nutritional products, including animal feed, with an interest in ethanol. Finch said construction is almost complete on a pilot-scale ethanol plant, which will produce approximately 100 gallons of ethanol every 1.5 days (243,000 gallons annually if it ran continuously). His system uses sugarcane juice, with additional sugar added to bring the sugar content up to 48 percent. “We can make ethanol from just about anything, but we think the best thing to extract ethanol from is sugarcane,” he said. “That way, you don’t affect the food chain, and if you don’t have enough cane, you can switch over to sweet sorghum or food-grade sorghum.”