Verbio to expand South Bend's ethanol plant for renewable gas

The South Bend ethanol plant is planning a multi-year expansion project.

German company Verbio biorefinery looking to make the first bio refinery in Indiana happen.

Verbio's purchase of South Bend Ethanol in May of 2023 signaled the start of the plans for expansion.

The goal is to modernize the plant and continue to find ways to efficiently produce renewable natural gas.

“Corn is processed into ethanol, and you have and you have a byproduct that was formerly used as a feed additive and sold to farmers, but with that now, that will be further processed in digestor tanks,” said Caleb Bauer, South Bend Executive Director of Community Investment.

Bauer tells me this expansion will not involve any fracking or drilling. This is because ethanol is not a fossil fuel.

“Instead of it being drilled from the ground like a fossil fuel, it is processed from organic materials, so the corn gets processed into ethanol, then has what's called stillage, and then that stillage is placed into large digestor tanks, fermented into natural gas, that natural gas is put on the pipeline,” said Bauer.

The South Bend Common Council approved nearly 16.5 million dollars in tax breaks for Verbio.

Phase one involving the digestor tanks is expected to break ground this summer.

“Ethanol is an additive to most gasoline, when you're purchasing gas at a station, roughly ten percent, of that fuel is going to be added ethanol, so as we move toward electric vehicle adoption, we're still going to need that for a number of years as we phase out internal combustion vehicles and move into electric vehicles,” said Bauer.

This plant behind me will be the second U.S. production facility for Verbio, the other is in Nevada, Iowa.