Energy Insider: Ethanol Surviving
KFYR-TV
The Blue Flint Ethanol Plant south of Underwood came on line in early 2007.
"In about 2006 the ethanol industry started a pretty rapid expansion to meet the renewable fuels standards set," says Jeff Zueger, General Manager at Blue Flint Ethanol Plant.
That renewable fuels standard said that 15 million gallons of ethanol needs to be used in the nation`s motor fuels by 2015.
"That set the demand side for the ethanol industry so the industry responded to that demand by putting a lot of production facilities in place," says Zueger.
But the demand did not keep up with the supply and some ethanol plants shut down or stopped in the middle of construction.
"The industry over responded a bit so you had a bit more capacity in the industry than what the demand was," says Zueger.
But Blue Flint wasn`t phased, they`re a little different. They`re operating costs are lower than other ethanol plants because of the big brother right beside them. The unused steam power from the coal plant is used to power the ethanol plant next door.
"So one of the unique things about this facility is we bring waste energy over from Coal Creek Station, the power plant," says Zueger.
With the coal plant`s help, their ethanol costs less to make. Advancements in ethanol production as a whole have also helped. It used to take a bushel of corn to make just under two gallons, today the same bushel can make almost three gallons.
"The main input for the ethanol production is the corn price," says Zueger.
All of the corn Blue Flint uses comes from North Dakota, the majority from the southeastern part of the state shipped to them on rail.
"We need about 20 million bushels of corn per year to keep up with the 60 million gallons of ethanol production," says Zueger.
Blue Flint is one of 170 ethanol plants in the nation producing 9 billion gallons of ethanol per year. 60 million gallons are produced here. Ethanol is not the answer for everything, but it`s certainly not going anywhere and if the Environmental Protection Agency passes a request to boost the amount of ethanol in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent, ethanol will be even more of our fuel foundation.
