Plant progress

Thursday, April 8, 2004
Michael Parris (left) and Jerry Brown of Starostka Construction, Grand Island, pour concrete this morning for a fermentation structure at the new SW Energy LLC ethanol plant three miles west of McCook. Tanks are also arriving today, according to SW Energy board member John Kugler of McCook. Kugler said this small-scale Phase I research and development facility will begin production by the middle or end of May, producing at least 8,333 gallons of ethanol by a June 30 deadline to qualify for state ethanol incentives. Phase I will be followed immediately by Phase 2, the construction of a permanent, full-scale 40-million-gallon ethanol plant. Similar small-scale plants are under construction at Madrid and Ravenna; a plant in Cambridge is also in its early stages. Kugler has no doubt that corn production in Nebraska can support the new ethanol plants springing up across the state. "If there's one thing we have, it's plenty of corn," Kugler said. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

Michael Parris (left) and Jerry Brown of Starostka Construction, Grand Island, pour concrete this morning for a fermentation structure at the new SW Energy LLC ethanol plant three miles west of McCook. Tanks are also arriving today, according to SW Energy board member John Kugler of McCook. Kugler said this small-scale Phase I research and development facility will begin production by the middle or end of May, producing at least 8,333 gallons of ethanol by a June 30 deadline to qualify for state ethanol incentives. Phase I will be followed immediately by Phase 2, the construction of a permanent, full-scale 40-million-gallon ethanol plant. Similar small-scale plants are under construction at Madrid and Ravenna; a plant in Cambridge is also in its early stages. Kugler has no doubt that corn production in Nebraska can support the new ethanol plants springing up across the state. "If there's one thing we have, it's plenty of corn," Kugler said.

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