Future generations of Lancaster County Amish will be able to stay in Lancaster County because they will have a new wonder crop to replace increasingly unpopular tobacco.
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Once again, small towns will depend on local farm products for their economy.
A new alternative fuel is at hand that is more powerful than gasoline, far less polluting and could sell for less than ethanol or any other biofuel. Both General Motors and Delta Air Lines are interested.
A Rapho Township businessman says all this is at hand and he wants to build a $93 million "revolutionary," first-in-the-world refinery on the edge of Mount Joy Borough to prove it.
And the catalyst for Paul Wheaton's dream: the energy beet, a hybrid beet that you can't eat, has been grown only experimentally, but one that he says could be a catalyst for producing the best alternative fuel yet for reducing the country's reliance on foreign oil.
"The Maibach Agri-Energy Center will be a showcase for the township, county and state to demonstrate how alternative energy can be used as a myriad of ascetic, energy efficient and economic solutions," Maibach LLC's application to Rapho Township says.
"We're ready to break ground in September," Wheaton said this morning. "We want to be a good neighbor and good corporate citizens."
Wheaton's application to the township says the groundbreaking energy beet technology could even be used to "bail out already obsolete ethanol technologies" without taxpayer subsidies, perhaps a swipe at the cross-county effort to build a corn ethanol biofuel refinery in Conoy Township.
"We're not a corn-based ethanol plant. We're so different," Wheaton said this morning.
It would be the world's first low-carbon transportation fuel refinery and could be built within 9 months, Wheaton said.
Not only would the plant emit zero emissions and have no smell, it would take needed water from the beets. A methane byproduct would be burned on-site and turned into electricity to completely power the refinery.
Plus, he said, the beets take up nutrients that normally wash into groundwater and end up polluting the Chesapeake Bay. Those nutrients in the beets will later be captured in the refining process and sold as fertilizer.
Thursday night, the first public hearing on Maibach's conditional-use application was held in Rapho Township. About three dozen residents attended but few spoke.
Perhaps, suggested Supervisor Lowell Fry this morning, that's because "there was just plain curiosity. We all wanted to know what it was."
The hearings will continue June 29, 30 and July 1, if needed.
Wheaton, the husband of East Hempfield Supervisor Heidi Wheaton, is owner of Lancaster Propane Gas. Near that business, off Route 230, is where the proposed bioenergy plant would be built on about 15 acres of industrially zoned land he owns.
Wheaton, who says he is the sole principal in the project so far, submitted an application for the project that paints a lofty vision of what the facility could bring to Lancaster County farmers and the world.
Although the beets refinery would be a first, the project's technology has been tested by a number of governmental and private research groups, including The Centre of Excellence in Agricultural and Biotechnological Sciences in Canada, the University of Oregon and the Penn State University Institute.
The application says the U.S. Department of Agriculture has offered to support the formation of a local growers' co-operative for the beets.
Energy beets could be a savior for local farmers because they could be planted between other crops, not instead of them, the application says.
The beet's short growing season would enable it to be grown and harvested three times a year. Some 30,000 acres of beet fields are envisioned when the plant is at full production.
To date, the beets have not been grown in the U.S., the application says.
Total estimated infusion into the local farm economy if the facility is built and at full operation: $38 million annually.
And, since it is not a food commodity, such as corn, its price will not affect the supply of food, the application says.
Both Amish and English farmers "desperately" need a crop to replace the diminishing demand for tobacco, the application says. Maibach representatives have begun meeting with local bishops about the venture.
But the model of a beets-derived biofuel has global implications for empowering agriculture-based communities, according to the papers touting the venture.
"Manufacturing was successful in the 1900's because factories were built to be the hub of business, jobs and prosperity. In the 21st century, the Maibach technology will resurrect the manufacturing business.
"Once again towns will grow and prosper around the agri-energy hub. This community-based model is a revolutionary way to stimulate economic development in these dire times. We believe that the Maibach model will be enthusiastically adopted nationally and globally."
The refinery, when phased in over three years, would produce up to 40 million gallons of transportation fuel a year and employ 35 to 40 people.
The fuel would target local "flex fuel" vehicles that are capable of being powered by both conventional gasoline and a fuel made up mostly of biofuels. Congress is currently debating how soon to require that in all vehicles.
Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.
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