Recession saps energy from ethanol industry

A year ago, the ethanol industry was riding high on spiraling gas prices that made corn-based biofuel a highly attractive home-grown supplement to costly gasoline. Federal mandates were in place to more than triple ethanol production by 2022.

Since then, the bottom has fallen out of the industry. Newly built refineries are shutting down, and some ethanol companies are facing bankruptcy.
“We are all struggling, there’s no hiding that,” said Scott Pearce, president of Biofuel Energy Corp., which inaugurated two 115 million gallon per year ethanol plants last fall in the Midwestern corn belt. “Our timing couldn’t have been worse.”

The global recession continues to keep gas prices low, while corn remains relatively high, squeezing the profit margins for ethanol at the nation’s 180 production plants.

Tampa Bay