The quaker state embraces ethanol
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protecion leader, Kathleen McGinty, has announced that Pennsylvania may host the largest ethanol processing plant in North America. An announcement is expected within July 15th and McGinty claims the plant could be online within 1 year.
Pennsylvania's roots in oil and coal run deep...very deep. In fact, two of the state's nicknames --"the Oil State" and "the Coal State" serve as a constant reminder of Pennsylvania's ties to hydrcarbon economy. In 1859, the birth of the modern oil industry occurred in Titusville, Pennsylvania when Colonel Edwin Drake successfully drilled on the banks of Oil Creek.
Given it's history and industrial base, I think it's profound that Pennsylvania has positioned itself as the leader of America's alternative fuels race.
It's unclear if Pennsylvania will allow one of the Big Ag guys come in and rule the roost or if incentives for distributing shares to farmers will be put into place to encourage equitable development. According the Associated Press: "The central Pennsylvania plant would start by fermenting ethanol from corn, McGinty said. But plans for the plant involve eventually using crop waste or dead forest timber to produce cellulosic ethanol, which is far more energy-efficient to produce."
Pennsylvania does not rank highly in crop production...the wheat and "feed grains" are the top agricultural exports, but the state's output for these two crops ranks 17th and 16th, respectively. Pennsylvania's agricultural output centers on dairy and cattle, not corn, soybean or other ethanol feedstocks.
So what gives? Why build an ethanol plant in a state whose farmers don't rely on offloading corn, soybean or other cellulosic content. I'm not sure, but my guess is that Pennsylvania sees itself as strategically located between the grain producing states East of the Mississippi River and the ethanol consuming markets on the United States East Coast.
The logistics challenge of transporting hemp fibre to Pennsylvania from pro-hemp states like Kentucky would probably make the Pennsylvania ethanol facility economically unviable for hemp producers in Kentucky and other nearby states.