Smaller ethanol plants must expand or innovate to keep alive

In Minnesota, older and smaller ethanol plants are struggling to survive because the economics don’t pan out when compared to larger plants, leaving them to either expand or innovate into other products in order to keep operating. The threshold appears to be at 40 million gallons, with anything producing below that level suffering from lack of economy of scale. Buffalo Lake Advanced Biofuels, for example, is installing new technology that will lower its energy costs significantly while improving the quality of DDGS it produces for animal feed.