Tiny Dove Creek has a new spot for renewable energy and jobs, paid for in part by Obama’s stimulus package.
San Juan Bioenergy will get nearly $300,000 for its bioenergy production plant.
It won’t create all that many jobs — the facility’s chief technical officer, Nathan Morris, said he can’t quantify how many jobs the stimulus will be responsible for. But the money will ensure that the plant can keep running and paying wages to between seven and 10 employees, depending on the season.
“It was great news,” Morris said.
Dove Creek is hurting for jobs. Dolores County, home to Dove Creek and Rico (although not, strangely, the town of Dolores), had the state’s worst unemployment rate in December, the last month for which figures are available. Its jobless rate was 17 percent.
It was the worst jobless rate in the state by far, far higher than the next worst jobless rate, in nearby San Juan County, home to Silverton, at 12.5 percent. Dolores’s jobless rate was the highest of any county since the Great Recession began, and the highest rate in Dolores in more than a decade.
Dolores was hit hard when four uranium mines in nearby San Miguel County closed early last year and 60 or 70 people were laid off, according to Larry Kibel, one of the people who lost their jobs.
Keeping this plant going won’t do much to replace those jobs. But it’s a small start, and it helps keep farmers in business.
San Juan Biodiesel mostly produces oil. In fact, the reason it’s located in Dove Creek is because Dove Creek is a good place to grow sunflowers.
The company buys the sunflowers from area farmers and processes it into oil that is used as vegetable oil, or else to fry potato chips.
Morris estimates that 75 different farmers grow sunflowers on their farms, and so the company’s purchase of their crops helps keep those farmers in business.
San Juan Biodiesel was formed in 2005 with the idea of using sunflowers entirely to make biodiesel. Since then, market fluctuations have meant that the company can make more money processing the sunflowers into oil than fuel, Morris said.
The company says local farmers have produced more than 14 million pounds of sunflowers, safflowers and canola plants that have been or are being crushed into oil or animal feed.
But there is still waste. Once you shell the sunflower seeds and pop out that little kernel of sunflower goodness, there’s still all that waste in the form of a shell.
So the biodiesel part of the plant takes those shells and vaporizes them. That means that it heats the shells until they release hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Those gases are then burned to produce energy, which provides 100 percent of the heat and 50 percent of the power used by the facility, according to the company.
“We’re basically creating energy out of biomass that would otherwise go to waste,” Morris said. “It helps our long term growth potential.”
The money comes from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly known as the stimulus. In a statement, congressman John Salazar praised the work of the company.
“This funding will help grow the development of renewable energy and protect jobs at a time when jobs need protecting,” he said. “I’m glad to support this effort and I will continue to support efforts that help America develop renewable energy solutions and grow the economy of rural Colorado.”
This money is essentially a tax credit, part of $13 billion budgeted to extend tax credits for renewable energy production.
Copyright © 2010 Telluride Daily Planet
