(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s biodiesel industry is beginning to rebound after several plants suspended production this winter. Dave Walton, a farmer from Wilton who’s vice president of the American Soybean Association, says biodiesel plants have a big impact on Iowa’s rural economy.
“A lot of those biodiesel plants are in those small communities and they’re good paying stable jobs,” Walton says. “It keeps some of those folks right there in those small towns instead of moving to a big city to find a job.” Due to uncertainty in the market, biodiesel production in Iowa dropped 31 percent LAST year. However, Walton says after federal officials announced in March that the latest Renewable Fuels Standard obligations require a record amount of biodiesel — production has jumped significantly in Iowa and other states.
“In April, we used 1.45 billion pounds of soybean oil in biodiesel production,” Walton said. “I can remember a time when we used about a billion pounds of oil in a year and our previous high was 1.2 billion pounds in a month.” Iowa is the nation’s leader in biodiesel production, with eight plants currently operating. There other plants are no longer operating. A shuttered biodiesel plant in Clinton was put up for sale in mid-May.
Two years ago Chevron announced its biodiesel plant in Ralston would be closed indefinitely. Three years ago, the biodiesel plant in the southeast Iowa town of Crawfordsville closed.
