LINCOLN - A Nebraska-based company joined the stampede for ethanol production Thursday, announcing plans to build three large plants in the state in the next two years.
Executives of Central BioEnergy LLC of Grand Island said the company will invest $500 million for plants in Seward, Howard and Chase Counties.
CBE President Gordon Glade, a Grand Island businessman, said the company has raised money in part from local citizens, including farmers who will sell corn to the plant, and is nearing its financing goals.
Nebraska now has 12 ethanol plants operating, 10 under construction and 33 in the planning stages.
Gov. Dave Heineman, who attended the announcement ceremony in the State Capitol Rotunda, said the state will surpass Illinois in 2007 to become the second-largest ethanol-producing state behind Iowa.
An interesting note that the World Herald left out is that Gordon Glade is a direct descendant of Henry Glade, who operated Henry Glade Mill Co in Grand Island in the late 1800's till his death in 1910. Later, the company, under the management of his sons, merged with other mills and became the Consolidated Mills Co and operated out of Grand Island until 1922 when it moved it's headquarters to the newly acquired Updike Mill in Omaha.
Long story short, it's now known as Conagra. Gordons got some pretty good pedigree.
The new plants will contract with Conagra for grain and for selling biproducts.
Does anybody know how many people are employed in the ethanol industy in Nebraska? I wonder if this might be what puts a cork in some of the state's rural population drains.
http://www.theindependent.com/stories/011807/new_annexation18.shtml wrote:The competing bills on Grand Island school boundary expansion comes as two major annexations of land are on the horizon for the city of Grand Island.
One annexation would be for 440 acres adjacent to the Platte Valley Industrial Park. The land is east of the park between Schimmer Drive and Wildwood Drive.
The Grand Island City Council recently approved an ordinance rezoning that property for M-2, heavy manufacturing use. When it approved the rezoning, the council also approved an annexation plan for the property. The public hearing and the first of three required votes for annexation are scheduled for Jan. 23.
Energy Grains Development of Kearney also has proposed an ethanol plant to be built on 160 acres east of the Platte Valley Industrial Park. Energy Grains Development has said it will spend $160 million building the plant.
When the plant location was announced, Energy Grains Chairman Paul Kenney said the plant site is proposed to be added to the Platte Valley Industrial Park and annexed by the city.
As I was thinking about the news of an Ethanol Plant coming to Grand Island, I got to thinking about several of the cons. Anyways, I work in a retail environment only a couple of miles from the proposed spot. From what I know, Ethanol plants smell, and that smell carries a long ways. I am afraid that when I am work that I am going to be smelling this all the time. As it is, you can't go for more than a mile without smelling one of the plants or cattle yards in the vicinity. Let's begin thinking like a city and consider clean air. Personally I don't want to have to deal with the health issues that will come of polluting the air...
