The economic downturn might have stalled marketing efforts for the 225-acre former Tennol ethanol plant but property owners are keeping the Jasper, Tenn., site active with a small firm making fuel products.
Renewable Fuels LLC, which purchased the site in 2009 for $2.6 million, has a small operation in residence using chicken parts to make products used to manufacture biodiesel, officials said.
Renewable Fuels and SunsOil LLC, of Athens, Tenn., merged to form the operation, according to Sonny Kyle, one of Renewable Fuels' eight investors who ponied up the cash to buy the Tennol plant property in 2009.
The $72 million plant was built in 1984 by Tennol Energy. The company was projected to manufacture about 25 million gallons of fuel a year but production never got off the ground, and the plant went into bankrupted in 1988.
In 1994, AG Processing Inc. of Omaha, Neb., bought it for $10.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, newspaper archives show. Community Bank acquired the property in a later bankruptcy.
County officials said in 2009 that Renewable Fuels was among the last of 15 to 20 groups which eyed the site over the years.
The economic downturn came at a bad time, Kyle said. But the merger with SunsOil LLC led to a functioning plant at the site that turns chicken parts into a commodity called "fat" which is used to make biodiesel, he said.
"We're actually making the 'fat' and selling it to biodiesel companies that are up and running," Kyle said.
As the economy recovers, the company could begin fuel production as well. "We do have the capabilities of adding a little bit to our process to make biodiesel fuel, but we just haven't done it at this point," he said.
In 2009, word of the site's revival under new ownership caught the interest of a Memphis-based company called Biofuels America that was studying a $62.3 million biofuel plant at the site. But Biofuels American did not make the move to purchase, records show.
Marion County Mayor John Graham said he has visited the current operation since it started. He said there were six to eight employees working when he visited.
Graham said the operation could be dismantled or shifted if a prospective buyer wants to move in.
"We have it as what we describe as a 'tier 1' property," he said. "Tier 1 means it's got most every utility you'd need to operate any type of industry."
Add to that the proximity to the Nickajack Port Authority, interstate highways and rail access on the Tennessee River, "it's a prime site," Graham said.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at 423-757-6569 or bbenton@timesfreepress.com.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee and previously covered North Georgia education. Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005, first covering Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties and later adding Marion, Grundy and other counties in the northern and western edges of the region to his coverage. He was born and raised in Cleveland, Tenn., a graduate of Bradley Central High School. Benton ...
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Hope it works out and becomes a functioning full scale operation, BUT...
These kinds of facilities have become magnets for shady operators that only see them as a way to get public "development" money , skim some off for the well connected (all perfectly legal) and then shut down and move on to the next deal.The south is littered with biodiesel and ethanol plants that only operated until the start up capital was exhausted and then blithely shut down. Ethanol makes no sense as a motor fuel and biodiesel makes only marginal sense ,sometimes , at a certain scale. Rule of thumb: If the deal makes no sense without tax dollars , it'll make even less sense with tax dollars.
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