Ethanol Pushers

If there's one thing that ethanol fuels, it's hype.

The fuel made from corn had its own pep rally at Kansas City's Hyatt Regency Crown Center in August. Bob Scott, the president of the American Coalition on Ethanol, told the crowd of farmers, engineers, energy experts and economists, "Let's keep ethanol the buzzword in Washington, in the coffee shops, in the legislature — anyplace we can get it."

Scott is getting his wish. You can't ignore ethanol these days — the promises that it will solve our dependence on foreign oil, help farmers, stall global warming.

Our politicians have taken hits off the ethanol pipe. At the August conference, the American Coalition on Ethanol gave U.S. Sen. Jim Talent an award for "legislative leadership." Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt took turns talking up ethanol. Blunt bragged about the new Missouri Ethanol Standard, which requires that all gas sold in Missouri contain 10 percent ethanol by 2008.

Even former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was there. He told the crowd, "If we can't drill our way to energy independence, we can begin to grow our way there." By next year, he said, the United States should produce 5 billion gallons of ethanol a year.

When we hear that kind of talk, we get skeptical. Looking for a dose of reality, we set out for Garnett, Kansas, a farm town of 3,368 people 70 miles southwest of Kansas City. A year ago, a $46 million plant that converts corn to ethanol went online in Garnett. Unlike most projects of that scale, this plant was financed largely by locals. An economic study told them that the plant would generate new business. Locals saw it as a chance to help stanch the flow of young people moving from Garnett to bigger cities.

Now that the plant has produced the magic fuel for a full year, we wanted to see whether Garnett's gamble with its future had begun paying off.

Aprocession of white-haired people climbs out of a yellow school bus and onto the sun-baked concrete in front of the East Kansas Agri-Energy ethanol plant in Garnett. They squint up at the silver columns reaching into the sky, each embraced by a metal staircase. This Saturday is the first — and last — tour that the ethanol plant managers will give. Visitors must be at least 16, which is fine, because a quarter of Garnett's population is at least 65 years old. Photos are forbidden.

It's June, and Garnett is sticky-hot. Resident John Shannon, who recently spent time in Afghanistan, reported that a 120-degree day in the desert is more pleasant than the humidity of a 95-degree day in a Garnett field.

As she exits the bus, a woman named Wanda Taylor says, "I've been waiting to see the inside of this place for a long time." Taylor, a nurse who directs the town's theater troupe, wasn't interested in going to the fund-drive meetings held at the junior and senior high school and the Garnett community center in 2002 and 2003. But now that it's up and running, she's curious.

The plant has bred the kind of optimism that hasn't been seen in Garnett since the Lake Garnett Grand Prix car races brought big-name drivers and 25,000 spectators each summer. A riot in the town square contributed to the demise of the Grand Prix in 1972.

Now, people in town rave about how Garnett native Derek Peine came back to take a job at the ethanol plant after getting a degree in chemical engineering from Kansas State University. "Derek started that place from the ground up," says Peine's mother, Sandy. "All the big and little-bitty machines, he ordered and brought in."

The plant hums as the group enters the first room, where grain, unloaded from trucks outside, is dumped through a hole in the ceiling, creating a 30-foot golden mountain. One bushel of corn, or about 56 pounds, makes 2.7 gallons of fuel, according to a sign set up for the tour.

In the room where the cooking takes place, rainbow-colored pipes slither over the walls and ceiling. The machines grind corn kernels into flour, which is then cooked to kill bacteria, fermented for two days, boiled and, finally, dehydrated into pure ethanol.

A plant employee named John Alford offers to answer questions as the tour passes. He says that 28 employees work at the plant. Alford himself worked up the chain of command, from team leader to cook operator to material handler to safety manager. "One year ago, I couldn't spell ethanol," he jokes. "Now, I are educated."

Past an emergency eye-wash station, the group comes upon another sign proclaiming one room the "Energy Center." A boiler, the sign says, creates steam to run the plant. The entire plant runs on 3 megawatts of electricity — the power it takes to run 50,000 60-watt light bulbs. The boiler and the dryer run on natural gas. This is a major criticism of ethanol: Its production requires the burning of fossil fuel. Critics say it takes more fuel to make ethanol than is produced in the process, counting oil-based fertilizer for the crops, diesel for the combines, power for the plant and diesel for the trucks to transport it. In the end, they argue, ethanol plants may simply increase the demand for fossil fuels.