KANSAS CITY, Mo -- KANSAS CITY, Mo. - It's showtime for cellulosic ethanol. After false starts and outright failures, some major companies are betting there's still a future in making ethanol out of such things as switchgrass, wheat straw, garbage and the stalks of corn. And 2014 is shaping up as a crucial test with the Midwest, especially Iowa and Kansas, at ground zero. Among the companies is Abengoa Bioenergy, a subsidiary of a huge Spanish company. In southwest Kansas, it will soon open its first commercial-sized cellulosic ethanol plant. Roughly a thousand workers are scurrying around a 400-acre site a few miles from Hugoton, Kan., and plan to finish construction by January. Abengoa...
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