HASTINGS, Neb. — Monday’s 25th anniversary celebration of Nebraska’s first commercial ethanol plant bore much more than a passing resemblance to the plant’s dedication ceremony.
The speeches, suits and several of the same people were still there. This time, though, the hair was a bit shorter, and the plant was seven times bigger and an industry stalwart, not an upstart.
“How many times can you be here for a plant dedication and then be here at a 25th anniversary celebration in the same place?” said Nebraska Corn Board Executive Director Don Hutchens, who was at the 1984 dedication as a member of the Nebraska Ethanol Board. “I wasn’t going to miss it.”
Monday’s open house at Chief Ethanol Fuels near Hastings — with nearly 200 people attending and U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., speaking — was a reminder of how far the industry has come since that first dedication and how far it has yet to go.
Nebraska Ethanol Board Administrator Todd Sneller, who also attended the plant’s dedication in 1984, said there was a lot of hope for ethanol back then, but a lot of skepticism, too.
Nebraska farmers were eager to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign oil and find another market for the state’s corn crop, Sneller and Hutchens said.
But the technology to produce ethanol on a mass, commercial scale hadn’t been proven. At the time, Adams County only had a few ethanol operations almost as small as a single still, and none of them had survived for very long, Sneller said.
A big concern at the plant’s inception — whether the market for ethanol would be large enough to sustain the plant — remains the industry’s most significant barrier to growth today.
Hutchens said ethanol was facing a tremendous amount of animosity outside of the Corn Belt when the plant opened, but through persistent marketing was able to overcome that and become a significant player in the American fuel market. A 31-year-old per-gallon subsidy for ethanol hasn’t hurt, either.
The Chief plant in Hastings has kept chugging along. It was built by American Diversified Corp. and bought by Grand Island-based Chief in 1990, and it’s run continuously since then.
Plant General Manager Duane Kristensen, who’s been at the plant for 23 of its 25 years, said the plant and the industry are well equipped to succeed through tough times.
“I don’t think we’re done with seeing those kinds of things, because we’re dealing with a commodities market,” Kristensen said. “But we’ve gone from a minor fuel additive to being a major player in the market.”
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