Sugar beets put forward for ethanol use

A North Dakota State University (NDSU) professor and project developers are embarking on a project to cultivate industrial beets to use in ethanol production.

The team are now on the hunt for growers to support and get their plan for production running.

Farmer Claude Richard believes: 'If it's economical to make ethanol out of it, it's going to cut down on oil consumption'.

Dave Ripplinger, the NDSU professor hoping to make this happen, has already been looking for potential sites for their ethanol production plan, but emphasises that before production can occur, he needs to find farmers who are on board and will invest in sugar beet growth.

'They need to be given an incentive to grow this new crop, and that's not easy to do. There is new equipment involved,' Ripplinger stated.

Project developers are looking to build the facility by 2016, in one of five possible site locations: Valley City, Jamestown, Carrington, Cando, or Langdon.