Besides those out working in the industry we also heard from some university students today at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference. Lance Andrew Stewart is a grad student at the University of Tennessee. He did a very technical presentation on locating ethanol plants.
His work focused on the location determinants that attract potential plants in certain areas. He says that factors include, access to feedstocks like corn and locating away from an existing plant. He also made a point of saying that although plants can be very helpful to a rural community they must have enough infrastructure to support one.
You can listen to my interview with Lance here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/farm-foundation/ff-bio-08-stewart.mp3]
You can also download the interview using this link (mp3).