Ethanol plant's purchase is welcome news

It was good news for Cambridge and all of Southwest Nebraska with confirmation that an idle ethanol plant will soon be churning out fuel again.

The modern plant sat idle for most of 2009 after Mid-America Agri Products, citing unfavorable economic conditions in the ethanol industry, declared bankruptcy, listing $80 million in assets and $66 million in liabilities.

Dec. 17, however, Nebraska Corn Processing LLC signed an agreement to purchase the plant, which it won for $30 million in a bankruptcy auction, besting five other bidders.

NCP, a subsidiary of Zeeland Farm Services Inc., got quite a bargain.

The plant, opened in 2007, can process 16 million bushels of corn a year into 44 million gallons of ethanol and 400,000 tons of wet distillers grain with solubles.

Not only will it provided precious employment, the plant will again provide a welcome market for locally grown corn and a plentiful supply of cattle feed.

And Zeeland is a "green" company, running a soybean processing facility on renewable energy from a local landfill, for example, co-generating renewable power and steam.

That kind of forward-thinking company will be a welcome addition to the Southwest Nebraska industrial community.