Iroquois Bio-Energy goes online in Rensselaer

"It's like baking a cake. The oven has to be the right temperature."

Workers broke ground just over a year ago on the 44,000-square-foot, $66 million plant. The facility will be capable of processing up to 14.3 million bushels of corn a year into 40 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol.

Production at Iroquois Bio-Energy will contribute to a statewide capacity expected to top 1 billion gallons a year when another approximately 17 ethanol plants planned in Indiana come online.

"What we've seen is a really rapid pace in corn-based ethanol production in Indiana," said Deborah Abbot, assistant director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

Demand for ethanol as both a fuel additive and, in higher concentrations, a fuel alternative, has intensified as gas prices rose in 2006 and Americans looked for alternatives to foreign petroleum.

State officials don't expect the demand for ethanol to diminish, despite a drop in fuel prices in recent months, Abbott said.

"The thing we think about when we look at ethanol is that it's a home-grown fuel, and we are reducing reliance on foreign sources," Abbott said.

"We're generating jobs in the community and putting money in the pockets of local farmers."

Close to 50 area farmers, most from Northwest Indiana, will supply corn to make ethanol at the plant.

The state is gearing up to move to a new level of ethanol production, Abbott said, one that doesn't rely on corn.

"We now want to be a leader in cellulosic ethanol production," ethanol made from wood pulp, paper pulp and other organic materials, Abbott said.

Privately held Iroquois Bio-Energy funded development of the plant near Rensselaer with a combination of private funds and loans, along with $6 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Workers at the Iroquois plant had been hired from an applicant pool of about 300 for jobs paying an average $16 an hour.