A new ethanol plant near the northern Iowa town of Lakota in Kossuth County is getting closer to processing corn. Scott Swanson, commodities manager for the Midwest Grain Processors plant, says they’ve taken in a little corn to test out the products, but have yet to process the first batch of ethanol. Swanson says the technology used in the plant is amazing, taking the idea of a small still and turning it into a processing plant that’ll use 15- to 16-million bushels of corn a year to make 45-million gallons of ethanol. Swanson says it won’t take long to process the first batch of ethanol once the plant is ready. It’ll take about 72 hours from the time the corn is dumped out of the truck to the time it’s turned into ethanol and shipped out via rail. He says they’re hoping the plant will spur more industry in an ag industrial park, and they want to find some synergistic businesses to go along with the plant. Swanson says the plant should be ready to start processing corn by the end of this month.
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