On Friday we went to tour an ethanol plant, Poet. It was pouring rain and just about the gloomiest day you can imagine and pulling up to the huge ethanol plant in seemingly the middle of nowhere was a bit of a daunting sight. I am embarrassed to say before this visit; I had no idea what ethanol was. I can’t say I was extremely surprised that it was made out of corn because if nothing else, we have been learning that corn plays a role in just about everything we do. I was excited by the idea of a gasoline substitute. Ethanol can help America stop leaning on foreign markets for oil and make some of the necessary product right here in America. It is not a perfect process, but it is at least on the way to improving the pollution in the environment.

Interestingly, we learned yesterday that Ellsworth College has gotten rid of their biotechnology program which is essentially what prepares a college graduate to work at an ethanol plant. This would make one assume that Ethanol plants can be very successful as people are having a hard time getting hired. Instead we learned that the training to operate the Ethanol plant takes a long time and they have a high retention rate of keeping the same employees for a long time and have no need for a new hire. This seems like it could become a problem as if colleges no longer have this program, when Poet and other plants like Poet eventually need to hire someone new, there is no one qualified. On the other hand, we learned that the plant has a really fast turnover in its maintenance division. They have found that no one that comes to work for them already knows how to do the job. After training them, the individual goes on to leverage this new knowledge for a better job and the plant has to go through the hiring process again.