Growing Power Hairy Hill LP

Growing Power Hairy Hill LP developed and now operates Canada’s most efficient bioFuels production facility. The Integrated Bio Refinery™ is a system that processes a number of raw biomass products into high-value products such as fuel ethanol, green power, and all natural bio-based fertilizer products!

GPHH's patented technology developed by, and licensed from, www.HimarkBioGas.com allows the production of these high-value products with very little energy input and no waste. In fact, GPHH makes its own process energy from waste – including almost all the residential organic waste (called Source-Separated Organics, or SSO for short) from the Metro Edmonton (Edmonton’s suburbs and exurbs) and central Alberta regions!

The costs of producing ethanol 'off-the-grid' are extremely low, making GPHH the lowest-cost producer of ethanol in North America. Among other things, this results in:

1. Food PLUS Fuel, especially with the integration of the nearby Highland Feeders & Spring Creek Ranch feedlot. Did you know that 1/3 of the feed grain mass used by GPHH goes forward as cattle feed?
2. Local value-add/economic diversification & supply sourcing, plus high-paying jobs. GPHH adds substantially to the tax base and economy of the County of Two Hills
3. A stunning energy balance of over 7:1 This is SUPERIOR to ALL OTHER liquid fuels that are produced at commercial scales. Did you know that liquid fuels originating from Alberta's oil sands have a negative energy balance? Did you know that conventional ethanol produced using coal-fired electricity has an energy balance that is only slightly positive?

The GHG profile (carbon impact) of GPHH's ethanol, measured on a full, true LCA (life cycle) basis, all the way to the tail pipe emissions, is also extremely low....even MUCH, MUCH lower than the world's current 'gold standard' of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol! As a result, GPHH's ethanol is able to meet and beat any and all thresholds met by cellulosic ethanol, including the extremely difficult Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS) regime that is being promulgated in California and British Columbia. As well, for U.S. ethanol plants seeking to achieve Advanced Biofuel designation, the GPHH model is extremely instructive and compelling. Tours are available by appointment.

Growing Power Hairy Hill is the first Integrated Bio Refinery™ in Canada. Our unique process (outlined below) takes grain such as high-starch wheat, and processes it into fuel ethanol. The residual material from this process, known as 'Distillers Grains' is fed to cattle at the nearby feedlot, and some of their manure, along with large amounts of residential organic waste (Source Separated Organics, or SSO for short) is used to produce energy in the form of biogas in our IMUS™ facility, which in turn is converted to green electricity and steam in our bioUtility™. The whole process is highly integrated and is currently the most cost and energy efficient method of producing fuel ethanol.

The Integrated Bio Refinery™ powered by Himark's IMUSTM technology & know-how will generate, each and every year:

-- 40 million litres of fuel (denatured) ethanol
-- 30,000 tonnes of premium bio-based Fertilizer (available for purchase soon), and
-- 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions credits (GHG credits) per year, the equivalent of taking 20,000 cars/light trucks off the road (26,000 if all of those cars and/or light trucks were post-2011 model years).

To accomplish the above, the Integrated Bio Refinery™ will have to:

-- Purchase over 100,000 tonnes of high-starch grain. This will be mainly select NON-food varieties of wheat, barley, and triticale....plus possibly, barley later on.

-- Divert 70,000 tonnes of wastes from landfills around Alberta [e.g. slaughter waste, municipal Source-Separated Organics (SSO), oilseed process byproducts, human sewage, etc.] GPHH handles the residential organics from the Suburbs and Exurbs of Edmonton (Metro Edmonton) as well as other communities in central Alberta – an estimated 350,000 residents’ organic wastes are processes in an environmentally responsible manner at GPHH.

--Treat an equivalent amount of feedlot manure, knocking out diseases and parasites, weed seeds, and odor.

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Traditional ethanol plants have been rightly criticized for a low level of energy efficiency. But almost all studies quoted by detractors of the industry, however, look at 'old tech' ethanol and data from those plants.

In any case, the biggest loss in energy efficiency and the greatest contribution to greenhouse gasses at conventional, stand-alone ethanol plants that are not integrated with an anaerobic digester comes from the use of fossil fuels for distillation.

A Himark-designed Integrated Bio Refinery™ gets much of its energy for distillation from the digestion of organic wastes.

The bottom line is that GPHH is among the world's most highly energy-efficient and cost-efficient ethanol producers, **even when** you compare it to cellulosic ethanol technologies currently being touted as the next big thing.