Ethanol plant to start construction at Stockton port

Ethanol plant to start construction at Stockton port Sacramento-based Pacific Ethanol Inc. will break ground on its $92 million ethanol refinery at the Port of Stockton within the next 30 days, the company said Tuesday. Construction is expected to take 14 months.
   One of the United States' largest producers of ethanol, Pacific hopes to start Stockton ethanol production in late spring or summer 2008. The facility, which will occupy 30 acres at the inland port, is designed to turn arriving Midwest corn into as much as 50 million gallons of ethanol fuel annually.
   California consumes more than a billion gallons of ethanol a year, making it the largest single ethanol market in the country.
   Stockton is the last of five West Coast plants Pacific Ethanol plans — two in California, one in Oregon, and one in Idaho. Its first refinery went online in Madera in November. The Oregon and Idaho plants are both under construction. A site near Calipatria, Calif., has yet to be started.