A Canadian company wants to turn an 8,600 square-foot building in Toronto into a biodiesel plant.

Biodiesel Magazine reports that Energy Innovation Corp., with some help from Invest Toronto, will build the 1.3 million gallon-a-year plant in the downtown part of the city’s port lands area, near existing ship, truck and rail transportation infrastructure:

According to Patrick Dwyer, EIC vice president of communications, the company is shooting for full operation by spring 2011. Locally grown flax seed initially would be the feedstock of choice for the planned facility. Utilizing a hybrid continuous flow/batch system, the company plans to extrude the flax seed into oil for biodiesel production and take the remaining meal for use as animal feed, or have it further milled into flour to be sold in the Ontario food market, according to Dwyer.

“Everyone said you can’t grow flax in Ontario,” Dwyer said, adding that, through a partnership already established with an area farmer, EIC would have access to about 1,200 acres of flax. “We said we don’t think that’s true. Areas not too far from us used to be known as the flax capital of Canada 100 years ago before people started moving out to the prairies and different crops started to replace flax. We’re looking to bring flax back and grow it ourselves or through partnerships.”

EIC will also use local coffee grounds as a feedstock.