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There's a lot of talk these days about our dependence on foreign oil. At a burgeoning number of ethanol production facilities, they're doing something about it.

By turning corn, feed stocks or even prairie grasses into fuel, ethanol plants reduce the amount of petroleum required to run our cars and heat our homes.

Ethanol plants aren't just producing alternative energy — they're also creating excellent career opportunities.

Fastest-Growing Energy Industry

"Enormous" is the word that Duane Carrow, renewable energy program director at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, uses to describe the growth in the ethanol production industry. There are currently 150 plants in production across the United States, with 60 more in construction. Ethanol is the fastest- growing energy industry in the world, with production facilities being built in Australia, Canada, China and other countries. Carrow expects that kind of rapid expansion to continue for the next 10 to15 years, with steady growth after that. A typical plant produces 50 million gallons of ethanol per year and employs 33 people, with 18-20 of the jobs being in operations.

"The operator's skill set is biology, chemistry and process control," Carrow says. The biology and chemistry reflect the basic process of converting the starch in corn into sugar and then alcohol. The process controls are the computers that run the plant. Carrow says ethanol plants run 24/7, with three to four operators on a team, typically working 12-hour shifts with four days on and three days off, then three days on and four days off.

Big Salaries, Small Towns

"That schedule appeals to a lot of people," Carrow says. "There are a lot of days off."

The chance to earn big salaries while living in small towns is also appealing. Technical college graduates can start at about $15 an hour with skills that allow them to move quickly move into team leadership and process management. Team leads can earn up to $22 an hour. Process managers overseeing multiple teams can achieve $55,000 a year or more.

Even at those wages, the demand for skilled workers is far greater than the supply, Carrow says. That's why Minnesota West Community and Technical College asked him to develop a Renewable Energy Base Certificate program. The 11-credit program can be completed entirely online in two to four semesters. The first program of its kind in the nation, the Renewable Energy Base Certificate was designed in response to requests from Minnesota Ethanol producers.

The first group of graduates completed the program in December of 2001, and Carrow says all had job offers long before graduation day. Today's graduates may have 10 to 15 job offers waiting when they complete the program.

Wave Of The Future

Students begin by learning to read piping and instrumentation diagrams and Process Flow Diagram. Other courses cover mechanical fundamentals like startup, shutdown, operation and troubleshooting of equipment, the sequence of operations in ethanol production and the types of feedstock and additives that are used, and the basic physics and science of an operating plant and the instruments used to measure and analyze production.

"This is the wave of the future," Carrow says. "In the next 20 years, bioscience, including ethanol production, will do what information technology did in the last 20."

For more information on the Renewable Energy Base Certificate, visit the Minnesota West Community and Technical College website: www.mnwest.edu or e-mail Duane Carrow at Duane.Carrow@mnwest.edu.