Two new ethanol plants are now online in North Dakota.

Red Trail Energy began operation in January and Blue Flint made its first ethanol product in mid-Febraury.

After working out the initial kinks, both plants are now producing at 100-percent capacity.

Brad Feldman went to Red Trail Energy in Richardton to see how Corn can be turned into an alternative fuel.

(Sound) corn In just a matter of 60 hours these kernels of corn will be turned into one of the nation's most-talked-about alternative fuels to hit the market

(Mick Miller/ Red Trail Energy) "We grind about 50,000 bushels a day which equates to 18 million bushels a year." The corn is first ground into a flour material before going into the cookers

It's then mixed with water and enzymes to breakdown the material

(Mick Miller/ Red Trail Energy) "We're after the starch in the whole kernel corn. We break the startch down into sugar. Ferment that sugar into ethanol and then run through a distillation process." A mush product is pushed through the pipelines and into fermenters were it will sit for more than 50 hours

Once it leaves these tanks it goes through a distillation process

It's where the ethanol product is separated from the bi-product known as dried distillers grain, or DDGs

At this point the ethanol is dried and is now a 200-proof alternative fuel. Then it's moved to a storage facility, to be shipped

(Mick Miller/ Red Trail Energy) "Right now we send out most of our ethanol out by rail. We're feeding the west coast California and Washington markets." As for the bi-product, it goes through a drying process of its own

These large bins remove all but ten percent of the water

Once that's done, the product is moved to a storage facility where it waits to be picked up by area producers

(Mick Miller/ Red Trail Energy) "We do put about 300 ton of modified product into the state of North Dakota daily." At the end of the year this plant will produce many million tons of DDGs along with 50 million gallons of ethanol

Two big products that come from little kernels of corn. In Richardton Brad Feldman KX News

Miller says so far about 75-percent of the corn in production at the plant is coming from North Dakota.

Most of this is from the southeastern part of the state.

The rest of the corn is being brought in by rail. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list