Stockton port ethanol plant begins operation

Stockton port ethanol plant begins operation Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol Inc., the largest West Coast-based marketer and producer of ethanol, on Monday announced the start-up of its ethanol plant located at the Port of Stockton.
   The facility will produce 60 million gallons of ethanol per year, utilizing 21 million bushels of corn, the company said in a press release.
   The firm plans to sell the facility's annual production of more than 500,000 tons of wet distiller’s grains, a waste-product of the ethanol-making process, to local dairy farmers as feed.
   Pacific Ethanol has ethanol plants in Madera and Stockton, Calif.; Boardman, Ore.; and Burley, Idaho. Pacific Ethanol also owns a 42 percent interest in Front Range Energy LLC, which owns an ethanol plant in Windsor, Colo.
   The firm said with commencement of operations at the Stockton plant, it will achieve its goal of 220 million gallons per year of ethanol production capacity in 2008. Pacific Ethanol plans to increase production capacity to 420 million gallons per year by the end of 2010.