Heartland Ethanol LLC, a privately held ethanol company, canceled plans to build seven distilleries in Illinois because of soaring corn costs.
Each plant would have produced 55 million gallons a year, Heartland President Walker Filbert said today in an interview.

"It was a combination of things," Filbert said. "The meltdown in the credit market combined with the massive inflation in the commodities market, especially corn."

Corn, the primary ingredient for ethanol produced in the U.S., has surged 84 percent in the past year on demand for livestock feed and biofuels. Ethanol has climbed 47 percent. ... Read full article