SEDGWICK ? The price of grains has risen dramatically over the last year, creating problems for efforts to launch a biodiesel industry in Kansas.

The Wichita Eagle reported Sunday that only one of the 10 biodiesel plant projects that were planned two years ago has been built. And that plant – Healy Biodiesel in Sedgwick – is running at only 10 percent of capacity.

Soybean oil was selling for about 20 cents a pound when most of the Kansas plants were first proposed two years ago. Today, the product, which is the prime feedstock for biodiesel in the U.S., is almost 70 cents a pound.

That means a gallon of biodiesel fuel would cost about $9 – well above the price of petroleum diesel. At that price, trucking companies and other potentially big biodiesel customers could not afford to use biodiesel.

“At today’s prices for soybean oil, it’s impossible to show a way for a biodiesel plant to make a profit,” said Donna Funk, a manager with the Kennedy and Coe accounting firm, which has a number of biofuels clients. “And if you can’t show you’re going to make money, you can’t find investors.”

Soybean prices, as well as those for all grains, have risen partly because of increased demand for grain products to make biofuels.

Healy Biodiesel owner Ben Healy said his company is able to avoid soybean oil pricing issues because its 99 percent biodiesel blend is made with used vegetable oil from restaurants.

“There’s no way I could make competitive biodiesel if I had to buy soybean oil at market prices,” Healy said.

The company also keeps costs down through overhead reduction. Healy said the business has just one sales location – the Sedgwick shop where the fuel is made. He doesn’t have to pay for distribution because buyers come to the shop themselves to fill up.