Officials in Emporia, Kansas are applying for a $750,000 state grant to help them put in the infrastructure the town will need for a new biodiesel plant set to open in just more than a year.
As I told you in an April 15th post, Iowa-based Renewable Energy Group has plans of opening a 60-million-gallon-a-year plant. The Emporia (KS) Gazette reports the grant would build a road and utilities to support the refinery:
City commissioners voted Wednesday to request the money from the Community Development Block Grant fund, a program of the Kansas Department of Commerce. The money would be used for a road, sewer line, stormwater system and water line.
The plant will also need a gas line that Assistant City Manager Mark McAnarney estimated at $700,000 to $800,000. The city will put up the up-front costs on the line, but a portion of it will be repaid by the biodiesel company.
Construction on the plant is to begin this summer.
On May 16, POET will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for POET Biorefining – Marion, located in north central Ohio about 50 miles north of Columbus. When complete, the plant will produce 65 million gallons of ethanol a year from 21 million bushels of corn.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $200 million, over five years to support the development of small-scale cellulosic biorefineries in the United States. 
According to 
Some student designs are proposing that windmills, such as the one shown on the left, would be built above the nation’s highways. As cars whooshed by, the wind would turn the turbines and produce electricity. Proponents say its a way to produce green energy, even when the original source is not so green.
The 48th Annual Corn Dry Milling Conference is coming up May 31 – June 1 at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois. The conference is jointly sponsored by the North American Millers’ Association and the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research Agricultural Research Service, USDA.