Cruising with Renewable Fuels is presented by the Nebraska Soybean Board.
Demand for renewable fuels is helping drive a wave of new soybean crush plants across the Midwest, including one in northeast Nebraska that is processing millions of bushels of soybeans into feed and fuel ingredients.
Chad Spohn, president and CEO of Norfolk Crush, said the Madison County facility began crushing soybeans in October 2024 and is designed to process 40 million bushels annually.
“We’ve seen about nine brand new soybean crush plants being built in the United States,” Spohn said. “Two of them here in the state of Nebraska.”
With new plants coming online in both Norfolk and David City, the growth is being fueled largely by increasing demand for soybean oil used in renewable diesel and biodiesel production. Norfolk Crush produces soybean meal for livestock feed, soybean hulls for animal feed fiber and roughly 460 million pounds of soybean oil each year.
“The oil that we produce here at Norfolk feeds into both biodiesel and renewable diesel,” Spohn said. “It is the feedstock to make those two products.”
Spohn said federal renewable fuel policy has accelerated demand for soybean processing capacity. He pointed to recent increases in biomass diesel volume requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard.
“The EPA just delivered the highest biomass diesel volumes in the history of the renewable fuel standards in the last couple of months,” he said. “In order to meet the volume requirements for those biofuels, we must grow roughly 60% more renewed demand for soybeans.”
Much of the soybean oil produced in Nebraska is shipped to renewable diesel refineries in California and along the Gulf Coast, while some is used at biodiesel plants throughout the Midwest.
Spohn said the expansion of soybean processing creates additional demand for farmers while also supporting rural economies and domestic energy production.
“A bushel of beans makes a gallon and a half of biodiesel,” he said. “We’re proud to process domestic feedstocks to make renewable fuels, and those things all help fuel America’s future.”
Norfolk Crush processes the equivalent of nearly 2,000 acres of soybeans per day, according to Spohn, underscoring the scale of soybean demand tied to renewable fuel production.