Eye on Agriculture - Yellowstone Ethanol

The seeds that were sown for an ethanol plant near Williston had been dormant for some time but now are showing significant signs of life The project was initially set for a 120 million dollar Ethanol plant to be located 17 miles southwest of Williston near Trenton North Dakota The location has stayed the same but Project Coordinator Mike Daly says the scope of the project has evolved into a bigger and better Energy Producing Enterprise Mike Daly Yellowstone Ethanol Project Coordinator We ve expanded the project from 50 million gallon a year to a little over 60 million gallon a year It s now a co-gen project instead of a stand alone ethanol plant Daly says the expansion will mean the plant will use more 120 thousand acres of Corn from across the region The biggest change though is in the co-gen side of the project Yellowstone Ethanol is building a separate coal fired power plant that will produce the energy needed to operated the Ethanol operation Daly We have a power purchase agreement we re signing with Basin Electric Cooperative and we re going to be producing about 10 megawatts of power and using about four megawatts so we ll be making additional profit off of the electric power plant When built the ethanol and coal plants are expected to coast 165 million dollars employ 40 people and will provide a market for 100 to 200 million bushels of cropland for the Mon-Dak region Daly We re in the process of getting Health Department emission permits and well permits The feed by-product from from the Ethanol Plan will be enough to feed more than 250 thousand feeder cattle Daly says Yellowstone Ethanol hopes to break ground on the project in September Near Williston with Your Eye On Agriculture Shaun Sipma KX News