At the March 10 meeting of Curwensville Borough Council, Eric Wallace, company CEO, said the project is moving forward and the company expects to have all permits and financing in placing by June or July with construction to begin immediately. According to information recently provided by Sunnyside, construction of the plant and the railroad line upgrades will take more than two years.

At the annual dinner meeting of the Curwensville Development Corp. in January, Dr. Rick DeCesar, vice president of Sunnyside Ethanol LLC, said it makes economic sense for the company to power the facility with the large stockpiles of waste coal available from sites around Curwensville because it can produce ethanol at a lesser cost than plants operating with natural gas-fired boilers.

John Wright, CDC president, said the company approached Curwensville officials approximately five years ago, looking for a locale with four major requirements that he referred to as "a rare combination." Those included a location somewhat near Pittsburgh with a ready source of water for plant operation, access to one or two railroad sites to allow corn to be transported to the area and near to waste coal deposits that will be used to meet fuel requirements for production.

"In meetings with R.J. Corman, the availability of the Howes Leather site was mentioned and found to be ideal for the above reasons as well as the bonus of our area having a reputation for a good work ethic allowing Sunnyside to find good employees," Mr. Wright explained.

He said he and a number of CDC and Clearfield County Industrial Development Authority members initially had concerns about the proposed waste coal power plant. Those, Mr. Wright said, were put to rest when a search for information about a facility operating similarly turned up a coal-fired co-generation power plant located on The Pennsylvania State University, University Park campus, in State College's downtown.

He provided information from the state Department of Environmental Protection's eFACTS Web site whose graph shows the PSU plant uses less coal than Sunnyside's projections; however, its emission numbers are higher.

He said significant strides in technology would allow Sunnyside to use a more efficient means to operate its waste-coal power plant with a lesser amount of emissions.

Mr. Wallace provided a report prepared for the Renewable Fuels Association by John Urbanchuk, director of LECG LLC, a global expert consulting firm, noting the ethanol industry provides a significant contribution to the American economy. In 2007, it spent $12.5 billion on raw materials, goods and services to produce an estimated 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol. An additional $1.6 billion was spent to transport grain and other inputs to production facilities, ethanol from plants to terminals where it is blended with gasoline and byproducts to users, Mr. Urbanchuk wrote.

His report also noted new jobs are created as a result of increased economic activity caused by ethanol production, and increased activity by workers in those jobs resulted in higher income levels for American households and in 2007 put an additional $12.3 billion into the pockets of American consumers.

Ethanol has also reduced the country's dependence on imported oil and reduced the United States' trade deficit. Mr. Urbanchuk noted information from the Energy Information Administration shows 65 percent of crude oil supplies and oil imports are the largest component of the trade deficit. In 2007, the United States imported 228.2 million fewer barrels of oil to manufacture gasoline, or nearly the equivalent of 5 percent of crude oil imports to the United States.

Mr. Wallace said Sunnyside plans to spend $180 million annually on locally provided goods and services including labor, materials and transportation. He noted the 70 jobs at the plant would result in permanent spin-off jobs, perhaps as many as 700 throughout the community.

There are also a number of local residents who have invested in the project, he said. "Take a look at what we are offering the community and it is a clean, top-of-the-line project," he noted.

The company also will not ask for any real estate tax breaks from Clearfield County, Curwensville Area School District or Curwensville Borough. He noted the total property tax revenue would be approximately $1.5 million each year.

"Both our one time and annual economic effect would be extremely beneficial to the local Curwensville community. These effects include new jobs, additional income, tax revenue and the expansion of the local economic base," he added.

Mr. Wallace said the Sunnyside Ethanol LLC plant in Curwensville was referred to as a "green project" in comments written about the proposed plant by Kathleen McGinty, secretary of DEP. "DEP believes the project will contribute more to the environment than it will take away," he said.

He also said waste coal does not mean the coal is dirty, and removing waste coal from various sites throughout the area will also help solve some of the local problem of acid mine drainage polluting streams.

Mr. Wallace said the company has been through several hearings required by DEP where information about the plant and its operations were presented to the public. "We went through a year and a half of due process concerning the air emissions for the plant with DEP and the Environmental Protection Agency. We went through our plans in great detail and our applications were approved. Now people are making comment about dioxins and emissions. I believe they are uninformed. It is like getting a judgment in court and being told you have to go back to trial. ... We have been following the letter of the law since day one with this project. I don't want a particular agenda to ruin this."

Mr. Wright said he does not believe additional meetings for public comment are required. "We went through this exercise one to two years ago and I believe the people who didn't show up should not expect this to be an ongoing, open-ended discussion."