By 2007, corn and soybean prices charged upward, cutting into the profit margin for biofuels and leaving some plants without enough cash to operate.

Plant operators in Lilbourn said doubling soybean prices wiped out cash reserves, just as the first batch of biofuel was produced.

"We couldn't see where it would ever pay off," said Don King, the president of Great River Soy's board of directors.

Lilbourn Mayor Dale Ray said that at least the town, which donated the land, doesn't have to mow and weed the property, but it was hoping for about a dozen jobs paying $13 an hour.

In the southeast Missouri town of about 1,000, open stores on the main drag are the exception.

In addition to the donated land, the plant received about $28,000 in state incentive payments. The plant's investors also received $924,000 in tax credits over two years.

The company tried to sell the plant for $6.5 million, but an auction has been scheduled for next month.

Many other projects never got off the ground, with investors pulling back cash.

Still, there is an even greater push for alternative energy after a summer energy shock that sent gasoline prices over $4 per gallon. And with commodity prices dropping, construction for some stalled biofuels plants has restarted.

Cole Gustafson, a bioproducts specialist at North Dakota State University, said that the biofuels industry has gone through several stages.

"Now it's kind of at a standstill as it goes from a mature industry into almost a new kind of industry," Gustafson said.

Dave Durham, president of Show Me Ethanol, which opened in Carrolton, Mo., earlier this year, said he doesn't envy companies trying to get off the ground now because "the investor pool is not near what it was."

"I think the economics of the ethanol industry became a lot more realistic," Durham said.

Lilbourn is hoping for a second chance. Police regularly patrol the vacant biodiesel plant. And city leaders expect the gravel parking lot to be busy someday.

"Someone will eventually buy this plant and probably start up," Ray said. "It was just an economic situation. Nobody swindled anything; nobody took anything extra. It was strictly economics."