The race is on to get the first ethanol plant in the state of Maryland, according to this article in the Baltimore Sun.

A national boom in the use of ethanol has lured eight companies into a race to build Maryland’s first factory to convert corn into car fuel.

Two of the proposals would put ethanol plants on the Baltimore area’s industrial waterfront in 2008 – one on Sparrows Point and the other in Curtis Bay. A third, on the Eastern Shore, will be considered today when Somerset County commissioners vote on a zoning change to allow a $136 million ethanol plant.

Chesapeake Renewable Energy is planning a 50 million gallon per year facility in the farming area of Somerset County, while Atlantic Ethanol has plans for a 50 mgy facility in the Curtis Bay area of Baltimore. Ecron of Annapolis is the most ambitious of the three plans – a 110 mgy plant on the Eastern Shore of Maryland that would use corn shipped from the midwest