Feedstock
GRAIN STORAGE ON THE GROW With a third of U.S. ethanol plants producing 100 MMgy or more, and most wanting at least 30 days of bin capacity, onsite grain storage has evolved. By Tom Bryan
With this year’s corn crop expected to top 15 billion bushels—the second largest harvest in history—and Iowa alone surpassing 2.5 billion bushels, another wave of grain storage expansion may be on the horizon in the Corn Belt, despite high steel prices and longer project wait times. Such bumper crops amplify the need for more grain storage and, when prices are good, create an economic windfall that trickles over to on-farm and industrial improvements like grain storage. Farmers benefit from added grain storage by being able to hold onto their grain until prices are optimal. Likewise, ethanol plants upsize their storage for enhanced flexibility and control. “For ethanol producers, more storage is often an easy financial decision,” says Brent Hansen, commercial accounts manager at Iowa-based Sukup Manufacturing Co. “Grain bins are among the quickestpayback investments producers can make.
If they can capture grain fresh out of the field near the end of the year, that’s about the best price they may see. Any volume you can get right away is going to typically help your margins.” Hansen explains that producers also benefit from enhanced grain storage in the spring when growers are planting and unable to deliver their stored grain to the plant. “It’s not only about being able to accept that new grain in the fall,” he says, “but also having capacity to keep enough on hand to maintain control in the spring.” When the majority of U.S. ethanol plants were built 10 to 15 years ago, most were 50 to 80 MMgy and sized their grain storage for 10 to 12 days of production. Anything above half a million bushels of storage was adequate. “Whether it was for cost reduction or other reasons, most ethanol plants were built with a minimum amount of grain storage on site,” Hansen says. “They just didn’t see the advantage of going real big. It’s a different story now.” Today, ethanol plant grain storage varies widely, but most producers have, or want, at least 20 days of capacity. “A lot of them would like to be at 30 or even 60 days
26 | ETHANOL PRODUCER MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2021
depending on location,” Hansen says. “The advantage they get with larger bins, whether it’s a 1-, 1.5-, 2- or 2.5-million-bushell bin, is getting substantially more storage on a smaller footprint than was previously possible.” Space isn’t an issue for all producers, of course, but Hansen says even those with multi-acre sites can benefit from the scale and efficiency of an extra-large grain bin. “The ethanol industry is going bigger these days because they’re just turning so much grain,” Hansen says. “With the smaller etha-
