Nebraska Going for No. 2

The latest ethanol plant to be built in Nebraska could help the state become the nation’s second-largest producer of the renewable fuel.

But even if Illinois and Iowa remain ahead of Nebraska in the ethanol production race, the Grand Island economy will still benefit from the new plant Energy Grains Development Group plans to build.

Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss said ethanol plants and the renewable fuels industry played a key role in Nebraska’s economy in 2006, and that’s likely to continue. The industry has proven especially important in rural areas where most of the plants have been built.

“It’s very important in that it affects the non-metropolitan areas where there has been some weakness,“ Goss said.

The roughly 543 million gallons of ethanol Nebraska’s plants were producing annually in 2006 trailed only Illinois’ 780 million gallons and Iowa’s 1.1 billion gallons, according to the trade group Renewable Fuels Association.

If the announced new plants and ethanol expansion projects are completed, the Renewable Fuels Association estimated that Nebraska’s ethanol production capacity would jump to 1.05 billion gallons a year. That would be more than the 887 million-gallon capacity the trade group expects in Illinois, but it would still trail the 1.7 billion gallons the group expects Iowa producers to make.