Now usually I wouldn’t make a fuss about yabp (yet another biodiesel plant) but Adrian Michigan is special (I was born there).

A plant capable of producing 40 million gallons of the alternative fuel biodiesel opened with great fanfare yesterday in an industrial area of this Lenawee County community.

The ceremony at the Biofuel Industries Group LLC’s NextDiesel operation included Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Carl Levin.

The $20 million plant, which was to be in operation today, is initially to produce 20 million gallons a year of the cleaner-burning diesel, said Jason Eisenberg, director of business development.

The firm has plans to double the capacity before year’s end, he said.

The renewable energy source is derived by blending petroleum diesel with fuel made from soybean oil. It and ethanol have won notice as showing promise for reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, fostering a cleaner environment, and helping farmers.(via)

I am still not very happy that they are using food stock for a fuel, but perhaps they will switch to something else once technology improves. I do know however know that this part of the country is in desperate need of new jobs. The “rust belt” area of the country has had it hard since the auto factories moved overseas. Renewable energy is the perfect sector to provide these jobs. There is also a solar panel factory near by and talk of wind turbine manufacturing plant. We can only hope that this sort of thing catches on and a renewable energy revolution sweeps the mid-west.