Posted on 09/27/2006 2:18:41 PM PDT by Kimmers
Since 1988, Ron Fagen's firm has built about two-thirds of the U.S. capacity. The Minnesotan invested in plants, too, and has a huge stake in the industry.
Ron Fagen, CEO of Fagen Inc.
Ethanol wasn't on Fagen's radar until 1988, when his firm added ethanol-making equipment to the Minnesota Corn Processors' wet mill in Marshall -- the oldest operating corn ethanol plant in Minnesota.
Throughout the 1990s, Minnesota was the cradle of the ethanol industry under a state subsidy program that virtually guaranteed banks wouldn't lose money if they financed an ethanol plant. Still, growth was slow and the plants were small, with Fagen building one ethanol plant every two to three years.
For Fagen, the plants in such places as Watertown, S.D., and Monroe, Wis., were more than just jobs. He and his wife, Diane, the human resources director for Fagen Inc., were early believers in ethanol as an economic engine for rural America and a patriotic alternative to foreign oil. One of Fagen's pet sayings is, "We're making fuel, and it's not coming from the Middle East."
The Fagens invested in almost every plant they built. In those early days farmer groups might spend up to five years trying to raise money for an ethanol plant, and an investment by the Fagens was often key to obtaining bank financing.
"Our bonding companies thought we were nuts," Fagen said. "They scolded us for making high-risk investments."
As recently as 1996, the Fagens personally guaranteed repayment of $2 million in bank loans to keep an ethanol project on track in Winthrop, Minn. They sold shares in some plants, but only as a means to help finance more projects. "We kind of gambled our profit," Fagen said. "I always felt it would pay out, but there were some sweaty times."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Ping.
LOL....thanks
Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
I'm for free enterprise and success, I like small towns, but I'm not sold on the benefits of ethanol. He might want to consider doing methane digesters as well.
(Monroe Wisconsin--mentioned in the article--already has a brewery. They make beer. Much more drinkable than ethanol.)
How much Diesel fuel does it take to make a gallon of Ethanol?
No shortage of water on the Mississippi river!
Methane digesters? I think there's huge potential in those.
Several large-scale dairy and hog producers in Minnesota needed a better way to dispose of manure and a number of 'em built digesters.
They produce more than enough energy to power their farms and businesses - and even sell excess energy to local power coops.
BTW, isn't Huber beer produced in Monroe?
It used to be. I think the brewery does small batch brewing for small labels. I think that Berghof beer was brewed there, and some small label that avertised in the Chicago area using a brewmaster with a german sounding accent.
When I lived in Chicao we took a trip to visit some of my wife's relatives in Iowa. Highway Chicago to Rockford, backroads after that. Beautiful drive. Totally rural. Monroe--a small town--was the bigest town between Beloit and Dubuque everywhere else rolling hills, corn, and farms. (Travelogue off)
Ethanol and free enterprise are two words that don't belong in the same sentence. There would be no ethanol industry if not for massive government subsidies.
And you're right to be skeptical about the benefits of the substance. It's garbage.
If they really are free, then I'd agree with you. I'm not an expert on this, but it would seem that manure does have an alternative use as fertilizer. If by using manure to make power we are diveriting it from use fertilizer, then the energy it produces comes at the expense of greater soil depletion. Am I way off base in this analysis?
Oh for goodness sakes, have some fun with this! We're talking about animal poop!
You have to expend energy to move the cow patties or swine excretia to the digester! That takes either some kind of gas run auger or hundreds of illegals fed with bean burritos to clean your stables, dairy shed, holding pond, or rabbit cage. Whether it goes on your field or to digester you expend the energy so it's energy you would expend in any case. (A farmer needs to clean cow plop from the barn regularly-it builds up fast!)
Manure goes into the digester as fertilizer, it comes out fertilizer. The cellulose and starches are digested by the bacteria, so there is probably a reduction in the bulk. When you clean out the digester, take what is left and and recycle it on your fields.
I suppose the question then is how much valuable fertilizer gets consumed by the digester. It seems, from what you're saying, that most of the valuable nutrients stay after the process od done, since all that gets consumed is cellulose and starches. If that's true, then indeed it is free energy. I'll have to read up more on that. Thanks for your comments!
No, but their customers do, which amounts to the same thing. If not for the blenders' subsidies for buying ethanol, no one would buy it, and all those ethanol plants would be out of business.
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