Western Biomass Energy, LLC (WBE)

In March 2007, Western Biomass Energy, a cellulosic ethanol plant, began operations at its location near Upton, Wyoming. Engineered, constructed and operated by KL Process Design Group, it is the first demonstration-commercial hybrid plant to operate in the United States—and possibly the world. The fuel ethanol plant derives its feedstock of ponderosa pine which is found in the foothills of the Black Hills of Eastern Wyoming. The ethanol produced from the wood chip/wood waste feedstock, will be sold for blending with gasoline and diesel fuel as an octane enhancer, and as a fuel oxygenate to meet federal fuel blending standards mandated in the Clean Air Act of 1990.



The start-up of the plant is the culmination of development efforts between KL Process Design Group, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the Wyoming Business Council and the Wyoming Department of Forestry. In April 2000, KL Process Design Group formed Western Biomass Energy to provide a platform for research and development between KL and SDSMT. Assisted by start-up grants from the Wyoming Business Council and the Wyoming Department of Forestry, Western Biomass Energy developed from lab-scale testing and analysis at SDSMT to the scaled-up commercial-version now in operation. Previous to the work effort, the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) conducted a site selection and pre-feasibility study in 1999 that suggested a plant was feasible in the region. Certain conditions depended on the construction and operation of the plant, which KL has since overcome.

To ensure a constant supply of feedstock to the plant Western Biomass Energy’s ownership includes a forest thinning operator, Baker Timber Products. BTP will provide up to six months of feedstock gleaned from both private and state timberland. Western Biomass Energy does not plan to consume highly marketable wood products such as saw logs or clean sawdust. Its focus is to process products other than logs with a focus on forest thinning and slash pile material. This approach provides a means to clean the forest floor in an effort to spur old-forest growth while reducing the fuel load in the forest.

The technology developed by KL and SDSMT is expected to be integrated with corn stover and other prairie grasses however; economic conditions to transport the feedstock to the plant must be evaluated.