New York Biofuel Plant Supplies Ethanol for Sanitizer

Western New York Energy (WNYE), New York’s only operational ethanol facility, is supplying corporations across the Northeast and Canada with ethanol to produce 80% antiseptic alcohol sanitizer amidst the COVID pandemic. The WNY Energy facility is locally owned and can produce up to 150,000 gallons per day of tech-grade ethanol for industrial purposes such as sanitizer production.

WNYE said it has also established a manufacturing and distribution network that will exponentially increase the production of antiseptic sanitizers made from corn. All the sanitizer and sanitizer products will be made in Western New York and the United States.

More distilleries across the Northeast, Midwest, and the larger corporations WNYE has begun to supply are ramping up the production of 75-80% alcohol-based hand sanitizers for retail and wholesale.

Distilleries that WNY Energy first supplied at the forefront of the COVID response include

Black Button Distilling and Iron Smoke Distillery in Rochester, Uncle Jumbo’s Vodka in Buffalo, Prohibition Distillery in Roscoe, NY, Clayton Distillery in Clayton, NY and Maine Craft Distillery in Portland, ME. Many of those companies first bottled the sanitizer in 24-ounce glass liquor bottles they had in stock, but are now working to make sanitizer available in larger gallon containers, pails or drums.

On an annual basis WNYE processes approximately 20 million bushels of corn into more than 60 million gallons of fuel-grade biofuel blended with gasoline; 140,000 tons of high-quality dairy distillers grain for the dairy and livestock industries; 1.8 million gallons of feed-grade corn oil sold as a feed product or for further processing into biodiesel; and 100,000 tons of food-grade carbon dioxide. The $90-million facility was the first biofuel company in the northeastern U.S.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Tecnon OrbiChem published in April my special report covering the COVID-19 pandemic and how the biofuels industry, as well as several renewable chemicals companies, have been helping out to minimize the horrific deaths caused by this pandemic. I will blog more on some of these companies.

For those who have been asking me about the potential effects of this pandemic on the bio-based chemicals market, I will be updating the Executive Summary and Market Review of my report ‘Commercialisation Updates on Bio-based Building Blocks’ which was published by Nova Institute in February.