First Trip to an Ethanol Plant!

So I tagged along with Kelsey on Monday to the Nebraska AgriBusiness Club’s June Tour. The first stop was E Energy in Adams, NE which is an Ethanol Plant, (I did not know this until we got there). But I was pretty excited because I’ve never been to an Ethanol Plant. Although I did feel I missed out on the authentic Ethanol production experience because I didn’t get a hard-hat, at least I got super cool safety glasses!

 We started by walking through where the trucks dump the corn and also where they pick up Dried Distillers Grains (DDG’s). There was only one truck unloading while we were there but a line of about 10 waiting to pick up DDG’s. They said the plant will empty about 200 trucks a day during harvest, with it taking about three minutes for a truck to get weighed and unloaded, that’s freaky fast.



The left two doors are for unloading corn while the right
door is for loading trucks with DDG's



The piles of DDG's produced in 2 day, they are
ready to be loaded onto a truck



 We then made our way to where the DDG’s and Modified Distillers Grains (MDG’s) come out of the plant. This plant makes a lot more DDG’s than MDG’s because they are easier to ship, cheaper to ship, and have a longer shelf life. They do produce about five or six truck fulls of MDG’s per week, which are shipped to livestock producers in an 80 -mile radius! But because MDG’s have a much higher moisture percentage (50 percent) they can only stay at the plant for five or six days before they go bad.



The pile of MDG's coming out of the plant



A closer look at MDG's



 As a dairy farmer and an avid meat lover, I have to say that learning how they make the distillers and see the vast quantity they make really was probably my favorite part. But of course as a college kid, I’m real glad to see that so much ethanol is produced, because without ethanol I know I would be a much MORE broke student! I learned that E Energy was designed to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol but right now is actually producing 62 million gallons per year. Also that 90% of their ethanol is sent out by rail to places like California and Colorado to be used. I only wish I understood more of what they were talking about when they were explaining the whole process of making ethanol! There are just so many words I’ve never heard and so many pipes and such going so many places. But I learned a lot, so hopefully next time I go to one I will understand even more!

To see more pictures from our tour visit our Flickr page or check out the Nebraska Agribusiness Club’s blog about the trip.

Fun Facts!

 -One important thing I did learn was DO NOT drink the ethanol when it’s in its alcohol stage (190 proof). A man in Iowa did and when they found him they thought he was dead, turns out he wasn’t but his blood-alcohol level was .7 , talk about a rough next couple weeks!

-They actually sell CO2 from this plant to a local company, for $6 or $7 per ton to be used in beverages. I don’t know how one would measure a gas but these are very smart people so I’ll leave that to them to figure out!