RICHMOND
A proposed ethanol plant for Hopewell is poised to win approval from Virginia regulators.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday will grant Osage Bio Energy LLC an air permit the suburban Richmond company needs to begin construction of the plant, estimated to cost $150 million to $160 million.
The energy project has divided Hopewell residents and officials. Opponents say they will continue to fight its construction.
According to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, the DEQ decided to grant the permit based on a review of public comments the agency received and an analysis of a modeling of pollutants.
Construction is expected to begin in early October and the plant will have a capacity to produce up to 68.2 million gallons of ethanol per year.
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to Hopewell residents:
If you do not want this plant in your area, you can fight it and win. Come talk to the residents of Chesapeake and Portsmouth. These types of facilities do not belong in an urban environment. And as the previous poster stated, ethanol is a very poor choice as an alternative fuel. It it less efficient than plain gasoline, and because the fuel companies and the food industry is in competition to buy corn, the price of food has skyrocketed. The price of corn effects almost everything we eat. And the price of fuel effects food prices too, so families are hit with a double whammy at the grocery store. We need alternative fuels, but it has been proven over and over that ethanol is not the answer. The ecological impact of planting more corn is devastating to our waterways. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is huge, and the Chesapeake Bay is fast catching up with the gulf. Wind and solar power have much less impact on the environment. Oil that is available in this country must be tapped. We must also conserve where we can. There is no one answer to the energy crisis, but ethanol does not have a place in the equation.
Have we learned nothing?
Ethanol is expensive to produce and is less efficient than plain oil. If we are looking at alternative sources, Ethanol is not the answer. Food prices have skyrocketed, cars get 15% fewer miles per gallon with the 10% ethanol mixture etc. Let's drill for oil while we continue to explore other alternatives.