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By a 7-2 vote, the Chesapeake, Virginia city council has given the green light to what will be the nation’s largest biodiesel plant.

This story in the Virginian-Pilot says council members found the proposal to build Smiling Earth’s 320 million gallon refinery to be a lot less dangerous than the jet fuel and gasoline tanks already around the 30 homes in the neighborhood:

“In this case, we’re getting the benefit of a new company that’s going to be providing jobs, taxes and cleaning up a section of South Norfolk, and they’re not asking for anything from us,” said Councilwoman Patricia Willis. “That is just so unusual.”

Company representatives say they will try to build the plant in nine months and want to have it running by next fall.

Smiling Earth is also doing its part to help the community as the company will put up $5 million to revitalize the community. Now, the company just has to come up with the funding to actually build the refinery.

A study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison looks at the potential for biodiesel production worldwide and identifies some of the countries that could become big players in the future of biodiesel.

This article on the Science Daily web site says the study ranked 226 countries according to their potential to make large volumes of biodiesel at low cost. While many of the big players already in the biodiesel market, such as the United States and Brazil, ranked in the top 10, researchers Matt Johnston and Tracey Holloway of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) looked at some of the developing countries and their potential:

[T]he researchers say the study’s true motivation was to identify developing countries that already export significant amounts of vegetable oil for profit, but may not have considered refining it into biodiesel. By exporting biodiesel – a higher value commodity – these countries could improve their trade balances, says Johnston, or use the fuel to offset their own energy needs.

Overall, the study ranked Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Uruguay and Ghana as the developing nations most likely to attract biodiesel investment, not only because of their strong agricultural industries, but also due to their relative safety and stability, lack of debt, among other economic factors.

The study goes on to say worldwide biodiesel production could reach 12-13 billion gallons a year… 4-5 percent of the world’s current petroleum demand… IF all vegetable oil was turned into biodiesel. However, the researchers acknowledge that’s not feasible because of the implications to the food market.

Check out the map below to see where each country ranks and read more about the study by clicking on SAGE’s web site here.