Folks in San Pierre, a town of 156 people in one of Indiana's poorest counties, hoped that a planned ethanol plant would save the town, only to find the project canceled as the result of the credit freeze.
"Those people on Wall Street? They don't have the sense to know how they're hurting us," said Freda Risner, owner of a town bar, tells P.J. Huffstutter of the Los Angeles Times. "That plant could have helped the county. It could have helped save San Pierre." Residents were looking forward to the jobs created by the plant, the tax income it would have generated, and the boost it would have provided other local businesses.
Ethanol has had a rough year, thanks to rising corn prices, falling gas prices, and lawsuits from environmentalists and town residents, combined with a generally poor economy. Nationwide, 27 ethanol plants have either closed their doors or seen plans for their production stopped as a result of the current market. "There's been no credit for months," said Todd Neeley, who covers biofuels for DTN, an agricultural news service. "Even the top ethanol producers are having a difficult time getting financing. For these smaller projects, like San Pierre, they had no chance of surviving in this kind of environment."(Read more)
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