BY SUSAN ERLER, Times of Northwest Indiana
serler@nwitimes.com
Locally-produced ethanol will flow for the first time beginning Jan. 18 from a facility nearing completion east of Rensselaer.
The $66 million Iroquois Bio-Energy Co. LLC plant is 95 percent built, general manager Keith Gibson said.
"We're just tying up loose ends," prior to the start of production, Gibson said.
An opening celebration is being planned for late February or early March, Gibson said.
Work had gotten underway in September 2005 of the 44,000-square-foot facility capable of processing up to 14.3 million bushels of corn a year into 40 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol.
A work force of 32 is being trained on-site after attending week-long learning sessions earlier this year at ethanol plants in other parts of the country, Gibson said.
"They're learning how to run the plant," Gibson said.
The workers had been hired from an applicant pool of about 300 for jobs paying an average $16 an hour.
Generators will supply energy to the facility until a transmission line is set in place by the Jasper County Rural Electric Membership Corporation, a not-for-profit energy cooperative headquartered in Rensselaer, Gibson said.
Close to 50 area farmers, most from Northwest Indiana, will supply corn to make ethanol at the plant.
Demand for ethanol as both a fuel additive and, in higher concentrations, a fuel alternative, has intensified as gas prices rose this year and Americans looked for alternatives to foreign petroleum.
At least 17 ethanol plants, capable of producing a total 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol yearly, are being developed in Indiana alone, joining facilities already in operation in South Bend and Washington.
The demand has driven up corn prices nationwide.
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.