Wisconsin’s first commercial biodiesel plant has started producing the renewable fuel… and a second refinery will open in about a week.

According to this story in the Wisconsin State Journal, the Sanimax plant in DeForest began testing the production of beef tallow-based biodiesel:

The first batch of biodiesel is expected to be ready in one week. Plant manager Russ Read said the production time will be cut to 12 hours once the testing phase is done. “We’ll be going at a slow speed and making sure all the pumps and level sensors work.”

Read said the plant, with a capacity of 20 million gallons per year, will be fully operational by the end of June.

Another 10-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant run by Midwest Biofuel that uses soybeans as its raw material is expected to start production near Clinton in Southeast Wisconsin by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.