Harnessing the power of cogeneration and biomass

As a founding partner of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Partnership, ADM has made substantial investments to develop cogeneration plants that produce steam and electricity to help power several of our processing facilities worldwide. Such systems, the Agency notes, “can greatly increase the facility's operational efficiency and decrease energy costs.”

In fiscal 2009, we brought our Clinton, Iowa, cogeneration plant on-line near one of the Company’s largest corn wet mills, and our Columbus, Nebraska, cogeneration plant was on-line in November 2009.

In addition to cogeneration facilities, ADM uses various types of biomass to help meet several plants’ energy needs. While most of our plants are powered by natural gas, electricity and coal, in Enderlin, North Dakota, sunflower seed hulls are used to produce steam for our oilseed processing plant and refinery. At our Valdosta, Georgia, oilseed processing facility, woodchips serve as a primary energy source for generating steam used in the process of extracting oil from soybeans and cottonseed. Cocoa shells are burned for energy at ADM operations in Côte d’Ivoire and Singapore. And at six of our South American plants, ADM burns biomass ranging from wood chips to cocoa shells, coffee shells and bagasse — a co-product derived from sugarcane processing — to generate both steam and electricity.