Jim Senior, president of the recently created Appanoose Biofuels, LLC, a renewable energy company, says efforts to build a biodiesel plant in Centerville are “hibernating.”

Senior said a recent feasibility study was not overly positive or negative, but the recent surge in soybean prices would greatly affect the profitability of such a facility.

A group of area business leaders formed the company in 2006 and visited three active plants and one under development. They also reviewed the securities prospectus of several plants proposed in Iowa and Missouri.

Based on their research, Appanoose Biofuels commissioned a feasibility study to determine the potential for the project.

Senior said the idea is not comletely dead. New innovations in the industry using other plant material, he said, could breathe life back into the effort - or soybean prices could come down again.

Since such a facility would rely heavily on rail transportation, area business leaders looked at it as not only offering new jobs, but as a way to keep the Appanoose County Community Railroad viable.

Senior added that his group is still looking at creating a bean crushing plant. After the squeezing of soy bean oil, which is used in the biodiesel production process, the resulting gluten can be sold as a high-protein livestock feed.