Ground broken for Metro Detroit's first biodiesel plant

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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070515/UPDATE/705150457/1396

Metro Detroit leaders and residents welcomed the region's first environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel plant to its new home on John R and Baltimore Avenue in TechTown today.

About three dozen people attended the groundbreaking ceremony at the site where Biodiesel Industries Inc. will put a 20,000-square-foot research, development and production plant. This is the California-based company's sixth biodiesel plant in the country and its first in Michigan.

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The Detroit facility is scheduled to open by the end of fall and will employ 40 workers, from delivery truck drivers to sales people to researchers and engineers. Ten million gallons of biodiesel will be produced at the plant each year.

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Biodiesel Industries, in conjunction with NextEnergy, Chrysler and Michigan State University, is working on acquiring Metro Detroit Brownfield sites to plant crops used to create biodiesel, said Croce. There is already a pilot site in Oakland County and the companies are planning to pick up more sites.

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