Tour of a Corn-to-Ethanol Plant and a Windfarm

Earlier this month, NETG hosted an all-day trip to Adkins Energy, a corn-to-ethanol conversion plant, and to Acciona's Ecogrove windfarm, both in Lena, IL.

At Adkins Energy, Safety Manager Mert Green started us off on our tour by showing us the products that Adkins produces from corn. The most important, of course, is the 200 proof ethanol- each bushel (56 pounds) of corn yields 2.74 gallons of ethanol, as well as a half bushel of corn oil which can be converted to biodiesel. The rest of the solids basically become animal feed, which is shipped across the US and overseas. Only 30 gallons of water are consumed each minute for processing the corn into ethanol, all of which is lost trough a “smokestack” during the drying operation, which means that incredibly, Adkins discharges zero waste from its plant. We got to see, touch, and smell all aspects of production, from receiving and testing, to milling, fermentation, drying, distillation, and distribution.

It's an impressive $70 million facility, all the more so because it operates as a closed cooperative: shares of Adkins Energy are owned by local farmers (most are from Illinois, a few from as far as Wisconsin) looking to get some extra value from their crop. Farmers purchase shares each growing season: for each share purchased, the farmer pays $1,000, and is required to deliver 1,000 bushels of corn to Adkins. Profits from ethanol sales are then paid to the farmers according to the number of shares they own.

After the tour, we ate our lunch at Lion's park in Lena, where we had plenty of time to chat, relax, and go a little crazy on the playground.

In the afternoon we drove out to the headquarters of Ecogrove, where maintenance specialist Kevin Lee hosted a Q&A session with us that lasted over an hour. We got to grill him about all aspects of operating a 100+ MW windfarm, including technical questions (how such large structures are anchored to the ground) to practical ones (how the community views Acciona's presence). After our chat, Mr. Lee showed us to the control room, where the 65 wind turbines are monitored at one single desk using two monitors! Wind and electricity generation data, as well as any alerts about performance and damage are tracked at this station.

For even more photos from this trip, head over to our facebook page.