Proposed ethanol plant struggles to break ground in Wisconsin

In recent days, we've seen more and more newspapers ask whether the ethanol boom can keep going. Those have taken a big- picture view, but The Weekly Home News of Spring Green, Wis., reports on how the changing ethanol economy has hampered plans to build a $75 million ethanol plant in Arena, Wis.

Town and Iowa County officials approved the Hartung Brothers Inc. project last year, but rising costs have outpaced the rate of fundraising and thus the plan has been delayed by at least a year, reports David Giffey in the Sept. 26 edition of the 2,700-circulation weekly. The groundbreaking had been planned for the spring of 2007, and the plant originally was scheduled to open in the summer of 2008. And the original $75-million price tag has been raised to at least $100 million. The investors say it's due to recent fluctuations in ethanol and corn prices, with the former going down and the latter rising.

“The bigger issue is does it make as much sense as it did two years ago,” Daniel Hartung, president of the agri-business firm, told Giffey. “No,” he continued, but still maintaining that the plans for the plant with a 40-million gallon per year ethanol output remained viable. During a recent Iowa County planning meeting, Hartung's conditional use permits to produce ethanol there on the agenda, but the future of the possible ethanol plant remained in doubt. (story not online)

UPDATE, Oct. 5: VeraSun Energy has stopped construction of an ethanol plant in Reynolds, Ind., citing current market conditions, Brownfield Network reports.