A Virginia company is moving forward with plans to construct a barley-based ethanol facility which would be the first large-scale fuel ethanol plant in the state.

Osage Bio Energy plans to build Appomattox Bio Energy facility in Hopewell, Virginia with groundbreaking scheduled for Friday, October 3.

The ABE facility is designed to produce 65 million gallons per year of ethanol using regionally grown barley as the primary feedstock. According to the company, barley can be grown in double-crop systems with established food crops such as soybeans in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Osage Bio Energy also intends to capture the energy value of barley hulls through conversion to fuel pellets that can either be used for process heat in the ethanol process or marketed as a green energy fuel in domestic or export markets. In addition, the facility will produce a barley protein meal as a co-product for animal feed.