Red Trail Energy

The facility processed corn into fuel-grade ethanol and various coproducts, including dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), modified distillers grains, syrup, and distillers corn oil, which were sold primarily as animal feed and biofuel feedstocks. The plant was initially coal-fired but converted to natural gas in 2016.

Red Trail Energy was notable for its pioneering carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, becoming the first ethanol plant in the United States to commercially sequester CO2 from its fermentation process under state regulatory primacy. The CCS facility, operational since 2022, captured approximately 160,000 metric tons of biogenic CO2 annually for permanent underground storage, enabling the issuance of carbon dioxide removal certificates in the voluntary carbon market.

The company was investor-owned with a board of directors and employed around 50 people. In 2024, it entered into an agreement to sell substantially all of its operating assets, including the ethanol plant and CCS infrastructure, to Gevo, Inc. for $210 million. The transaction closed in early 2025, after which the assets were renamed Net-Zero North, and the company entity changed its name to South 8 Energy, LLC while retaining minimal operations.

Through its operations, Red Trail Energy contributed to the advancement of low-carbon renewable fuels and carbon management technologies in the biofuels industry.