05/21/08 Pacific Ethanol up and running in Idaho

Governor Butch Otter calls the 120 million dollar Pacific Ethanol plant in Burley a bright and shining star. The plant located on 177 acres has begun production of 60 million gallons of ethanol annually from 23 million bushels of corn brought in several times a month from the Midwest on 100 car trains. Despite a rash of bad publicity recently Pacific Ethanol's Board Chairman Bill Jones says ethanol supplies eight percent of this nation's fuel. JONES "We have an opportunity as a people to take back our future Pacific's CEO Neil Koehler says they came to the Magic Valley because of its proximity to nearly a half million dairy cows and feedlot cattle. KOEHLER "Corn. We take the starch out. That's the energy. We convert that into ethanol. We take all of the food value; the protein, the minerals, the fat, the yeast that's left over from our process. We concentrate that and we create a feed product that has 120 percent of the feed valley of the original corn that we brought into the plant." In the end a half million tons of distillers grain each year for dairy use and a plant that will put more than seven million dollars a year into the Cassia County economy. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott