Ethanal plant in Lancaster wins nod

As part of a Los Angeles County government effort to help ease global warming and the high cost of gasoline, a county panel on Wednesday approved a plan to build the county's first ethanol plant near the Lancaster landfill.Jerry Berrios and Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

The $30 million plant will be the first commercial facility in the nation to process biowaste - wood chips, grass cuttings and other organic waste - into ethanol, a gasoline additive that helps reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases and can be used as an alternative fuel.

It also is the first of three that Irvine-based BlueFire Ethanol plans to build in Southern California.

"Right now, our internal plan for BlueFire Ethanol is we want to build 20 of these types of facilities nationwide over the next seven years, and that will get us to roughly 1 billion gallons a year of production," said Arnold Klann, chief executive officer and president.