Illinois is ground zero for the fuel battle, where gas meets corn.

In 2005, Illinois produced 25 percent of the US’s supply of the controversial alternative fuel, corn-ethanol.

In 2006, Rochelle Ill., the Illinois River Energy, LLC opened a dry mill, corn-based processing facility with an ethanol production capacity of 50 million gallons per year.

“This year, IRE will begin an expansion project, doubling its processing capacity to 100 million gallons per year,” said Rich Ruebe, chief executive officer of GTL Resources USA, the project development company working with the Rochelle ethanol plant.

One of the first issues faced by ethanol supporters is whether it takes more energy to make ethanol than it produces.

In 1995, the USDA released an article, “Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol,” which concluded that ethanol contains 34 percent more energy than is used to grow and harvest the corn and distill it into ethanol.

Other reports state the contrary.

Another issue is ethanol’s effect on the price of corn.

“In 1983, the U.S. produced 5 billion bushels of corn because the government paid farmers not to plant corn on their land in order to keep the price of corn high,” said Louis Jay Faivre, owner of LJ Faivre farms in DeKalb and Malta.

“Now we’re producing 13 billion bushels, and we can’t keep up with the demand.”

In August 2003, an inter-modal rail terminal opened in Rochelle, which enabled cargo to travel via various means of transportation internationally.

“It used to be that we would get large containers of goods from China into Rochelle, and we’d have to send the containers back empty,” said Faivre. “Now because of a biproduct of ethanol production – high-protein distillers’ grain, an animal feed – we can send the containers back full. That’s a whole new, finished product.”

Ethanol extraction has also improved.

“Five years ago, ethanol technology could extract 2.3 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn,” said Ruebe. “With modern technology, the average extraction is 2.8 gallons per bushel. It’s getting more efficient every year.”