Here We Go: More Green Energy Bankruptcies

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

When the New Energy Corp. ethanol plant in South Bend, Ind., was idled by its bankruptcy filing last November, people nearby hoped a buyer would restart operations, and not just for its 90 jobs. The plant had sucked six million gallons of water a day from the surrounding swamplands, and without its pumps, water pooled in nearby basements.
But the winning $2.5 million bid at the bankruptcy auction came from buyers who plan to sell the plant for scrap.

The South Bend facility was the country's first major ethanol plant when it opened in 1984, and now it could be the first to get dismantled after filing for bankruptcy. Several other small towns in the Midwest could face a similar scenario as the ethanol industry begins to emerge from one of the toughest markets in its three-decade history.

The U.S. needs roughly 13 billion gallons of ethanol each year because most gasoline sold in the country is blended with 10% ethanol under a government mandate. But demand for gasoline has been weaker since 2008 as people chose to drive less in the recession and prolonged economic recovery, leading to an oversupply of the fuel. Last year's Midwest drought, meanwhile, drove up the price of corn that plants need to brew ethanol.

U.S. ethanol production fell in 2012 for the first time in 16 years, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, forcing some ethanol plants to idle and take losses as they wait for the oversupply to ease.  

And so it goes.