NOVELTY - Conversion of solar energy from biomass into ethanol and recovering and recycling nutrients and water from the process at a single geographic site, comprises converting the biomass to fermentable sugars, fermenting the sugars to produce an intermediate beer product, recovering ethanol from the beer product and leaving a residual stream of digester feed product and water, and recovering and recycling water and nutrients from the residual stream.    USE - For converting a solar energy from biomass into ethanol and recovering and recycling nutrients and water from the process at a single geographic site.    ADVANTAGE - The process meets a long recognized and un-met need for sustainable production of ethanol and/or natural gas from crops and timber. It requires minimal outside input of nutrients and energy. Nitrogen leaving composting is converted into an organic form, which fixes the nitrogen in place, preventing loss of waterways or air. The process is operable with minimum labor input and production is coordinated over the entire collection of related facilities.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - Conversion of solar energy from biomass into ethanol and recovering and recycling nutrients and water from the process at a single geographic site, involves converting the biomass to fermentable sugars. The fermentable sugars are fermented to produce an intermediate beer product. Ethanol is recovered from the beer product, leaving a residual stream of digester feed product and water. Water is recovered from the residual stream to obtain the digester feed product. Nutrients are recovered from the digester feed product. At least some of the recovered water is used in at least one of the converting and fermenting processes. At least some of the recovered nutrients are recycled at the geographic site. The obtaining, converting, fermenting, recovering, using, and recycling steps can all occur at the single geographical site.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The drawing is a block diagram of distributed ethanol production with pre-fractionation of corn.