Making ethanol from a nuisance weed could be an idea whose time has come.

A Tennessee entrepreneur claims to have found a way to make ethanol out of kudzu – into a product he calls “Kudzunol.”

Doug Mizell is a co-founder of Agro*Gas Industries, LLC, which he promotes on his MySpace page. He and partner Tom Monahan are looking for funding to build a demonstration plant to prove that their technology will work.

Kudzu is an invasive species that grows vine-like throughout the southeast. “There’s 7.2 million acres of kudzu in the south that’s absolutely good to no one,” said Mizell. “It grows a foot a day, 60 feet a season and can be harvested twice a year and not even hurt the stand.”

Agro*Gas plans to break ground on a demonstration plant somewhere in Tennessee by end of the year and hopefully begin production in 2009.