Nebraska has lost the last commercial operation of its infant biodiesel industry, at least temporarily.

Northeast Nebraska Biodiesel LLC has stopped making biodiesel fuel from soybeans at its plant in Scribner.

It was the last operating commercial biodiesel plant in Nebraska.

The high price of soybeans has damaged the industry, just as the high price of corn caused havoc in the ethanol industry.

Robert Byrnes, a renewable energy consultant from Oakland who helped the Scribner plant get started, said the plant was closed.

"They held up a lot longer than anybody else," Byrnes said.

Plant officials could not be reached for comment. An employee who answered the phone at the plant said all but a few of the plant's 10 employees have been laid off, and the plant is still crushing soybeans, but not for making biodiesel.

The biodiesel plant had the capability to produce five million gallons of biodiesel per year, small production compared to biodiesel plants elsewhere. The plant is on the northwest edge of Scribner on U.S. 275.

There are still a half dozen or so of small farm-based biodiesel plants left in Nebraska, Byrnes said.

But the Scribner plant, financed in 2006 by selling a private offering of memberships among Nebraskans, was the first attempt at producing diesel fuel from locally grown beans. Then a much larger plant planned for Beatice never got off the ground. One in Gering started, but closed more than year ago. One in Arlington used vegetable oil and one in Fremont tried using animal fat.

"There were probably ten plants that never scratched dirt," Byrnes said.

That doesn't mean the end of the industry so much as a pause.

"It's always a pause," Byrnes said. "Market conditions can change at any time. But when you close a commercial plant the steel sits there, and the most valuable thing lost is the employees.

"The team in Scribner was proficient. They knew how to run that plant. you don't just put an ad in the paper and find biodiesel operators."

The Scribner plant was operating intermittently in the past few months, because of the large amount of plant capacity built recently, said Victor Bohuslavsky, executive director of the Nebraska Soybean Board.

The National Biodiesel Board expects biodiesel production, which fell this year for the first time since 1999, to revive as the federal goverment finishes rules on renewable fuel standards.

Byrnes thinks the Scribner plant can come back.

"It's hopeful we can turn it around," he said. "I think that'll happen, the sad part is, the state has done nothing for biodiesel. ... The state was not there to support early risk-takers. I understand it can't support everything. It's an opportunity lost."

Ultimately, the biofuels industry depends upon the public's willingness to pay a little more, according to Byrnes.

"Nebraskans and Americans need to realize it may cost a little more now, but the change to renewable fuel comes with a price tag," he said. "Hopefully they'll make a choice. A few cents extra for a sustainable fuel are worth it."

Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or at dpiersol@journalstar.com