Tractor trailers filled with bright, yellow corn roll off of Highway 65 into the Mid-Missouri Energy plant constantly, at all hours, five days a week. So begins the first basic step of making ethanol.
During a recent plant tour, plant manager Billy Gwaltney explained the process:
The trucks are stopped at a gated entry to an area behind the plant. A section of the top of the trucks is removed and an automated metallic probe jabs into the corn, where a sample is sucked through tubes into a lab just inside the plant.
Inside, lab assistants quickly run tests for moisture, weight and vitality. The trucks make their way into a receiving pit. Usually, a truck will bring a load of about 900 bushels, which is about six acres' worth of corn.
Corn is then dumped onto an underground conveyor belt, where it is moved to one of two 100-foot-tall corn silos.
