The sounds of construction of the country's largest ethanol plant in Westmoreland County are being accompanied by a buzz about what it will mean for farmers in the region when production gets under way about a year from now.

		Graphic: Use rises; production jumps

Whether it's locally grown corn going into the plant to produce ethanol or the byproduct coming out of it for use as less expensive feed for local livestock, the facility is expected to create new economic opportunities for farmers hereabouts.

But just how wide and deep a swath that impact will cut can't yet be foreseen.

"This is something we should be excited about," state Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolf said of the recent commencement of construction of Commonwealth Renewable Energy Inc.'s plant in Hempfield. "It's good for the environment because ethanol is better than fossil fuel and it's good for the local economy.

"The concept is excellent with farmers in Pennsylvania not only growing food but growing fuel. It's a new and exciting role. And there will be savings for the local farmer in lower-cost, high-value feed.

"This will be a substantial economic driver for rural areas. There will be a huge ripple effect in the economy."

But, like others, Mr. Wolf said it's far too early to be more specific about the effect of the state's first ethanol plant, an assessment shared by Gary Sheppard, Westmoreland County director for the Penn State Cooperative Extension.

"I think this is a very interesting opportunity," Mr. Sheppard said, "but it's hard to say what the effect will be until the plant is up and running.

"People are talking about it. The farm community is really intrigued with it, but until the plant itself starts rolling, it's hard for the agricultural community to react.

"We needed a new opportunity. How we respond to it and take advantage of it remains to be seen. "

Commonwealth is constructing its plant at the 700,000-square-foot facility where Sony Electronic Inc.'s American Video Glass Co. manufactured glass funnels and panels for traditional cathode ray picture tubes. Sony closed the plant a year ago when demand disappeared for that dated technology.

Commonwealth's planned production of 200 million gallons of ethanol from 75 million bushels of corn will make it the largest such plant in the United States.

The ethanol plant won't replace the 350 jobs lost when Sony closed its doors there. In fact, the plant will employ less than one-third of those positions, about 100 people, said Steve Savor, Commonwealth's chief executive officer, but he added that hundreds will be needed for retrofitting the plant for ethanol production over the next year.

One economic opportunity the plant presents will be in a new, large and projected long-standing market for corn because it contains starch that is relatively easily converted into sugar. That's important because ethanol is made from biological feedstocks that contain appreciable amounts of sugar or materials that can be converted into sugar such as starch or cellulose.

Once ground up, the sugar is dissolved out of the material and then fed to microbes that use it for food, producing ethanol and carbon dioxide in the process. A final step purifies the ethanol to the desired concentration.

Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is desirable because it is an oxygenate, meaning it adds oxygen to fuel, thus making it burn cleaner. Enriching gasoline with ethanol helps to reduce greenhouse gases and harmful tailpipe emissions. Ethanol is biodegradable and does not pollute groundwater.

The future appears bright for ethanol as a fuel, the U.S. Department of Energy said, because of the abundance of ethanol-compatible vehicles. Many vehicles on the road today can run on blends of ethanol and gasoline, most on lower-level blends such as E10, or 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline.

At the end of 2006, there were 110 ethanol plants operating in the U.S. with a combined annual production capacity of 5.4 billion gallons, according to the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council Inc.. Today, there are more than 75 ethanol plants either under construction or expanding that, when completed, will more than double the current production capacity.

The increased production of ethanol nationally has created a spike in the price for corn, now ranging between $3.60 to $3.80 a bushel, whereas only a few years ago it was in the $2-a-bushel range. Some economists worry that corn prices will continue to rise, significantly pushing up food prices at supermarkets on a range of products since corn is a widely used foodstuff. Other critics, noting corn is one of the most energy-intensive crops to produce, question the potential benefits of increasing ethanol production.

Still, the higher price corn has been fetching in the marketplace has made it more attractive for farmers across the country to plant corn. Pennsylvania is a corn-deficit state, meaning it uses more than it grows, primarily because of amount of feed purchased for the large number of livestock in the commonwealth.

The state ranks 16th in the country in farming corn for grain, but the 1.4 million acres planted last year, which translated to 137 million bushels of corn, represented an increase of 100,000 acres.

Southwestern Pennsylvania farmers accounted for only about 70,000 acres, or about 5 percent of the state's total corn acreage, but the emergence of a new market has the potential to significantly boost that number.

Mr. Wolf said the proximity of the ethanol plant should produce attractive prices for local farmers because transportation costs won't be as high as if the grain was transported from out of state.

Mr. Savor said Commonwealth is looking forward to working with local farmers.

"As soon as we get a little bit of the construction out of the way, we'll be reaching out to them letting them know there's a future market for crops here, that they can get agreements for prepurchase and to use our credit to expand their acreage and increase crop production," Mr. Savor said.

The downside of spike in corn prices is the effect it has on livestock farmers, but that's where Mr. Savor and others see a second opportunity coming out -- literally -- from the ethanol plant.

Because the plant will use so much corn, it will produce a large amount of distillers grains, the saturated byproduct of the fermentation process which is used extensively by farmers as livestock feed. The wet substance has a relatively short shelf-life -- 4 to 5 days in warm weather if untreated, not mixed with other feeds or covered -- so most farmers by necessity purchase a dried version, which costs more because of the energy costs associated with removing the liquid.

However, southwestern Pennsylvania farmers with a local source for wet distillers grains could possibly decrease their feed costs substantially, Mr. Sheppard of the cooperative extension said.

"It will be interesting to see how this evolves. To me, this is one more interesting opportunity for the agricultural community," he said.

"There's no doubt in my mind that a more economical feed source is critical for sustaining the livestock industry."