Chicago City Council could greenlight the development of an $80 million, second-generation ethanol refinery on city-owned land in the west side of Chicago, a source familiar with the project tells GER.
A vote on the resolution approving the project is scheduled for next Wednesday.
The project, which is in the early stages of development, will produce cellulosic ethanol from municipal waste and is expected to cost between $60 million and $80 million.
Our source tells us that developers will likely finance the biorefinery with a combination of debt and equity and are in talks with a couple of Chicago-based institutional investors, which he declined to name. The project could also use Department of Energy loan guarantees.