Chernobyl chosen as site of 145 Mgy ethanol plant in Belarus; feedstock cultivation to remove radioactive isotopes from soil

In Belarus, Greenfield Project Management signed an agreement with the national government to build a 145 Mgy gallon ethanol plant at Chernobyl, site of a nuclear industry accident in the 1980s. The sugar beets and grain feedstocks will be grown at the site of the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, and cultivation will remove radioactive isotopes from the soil. Project cost has been estimated at $288 million.
Ethanol development in Eastern Europe has been under a cloud due to heat and drought which have badly affected the primary Eastern European wheat growing areas such as the Ukraine.

Aside from the Belrus plant, only a 1 million tonne grain ethanol plant in Tatarstan, a republic of the Russian Federation, championed by President Shaimiyev has gone forward. The project is expected to be completed by 2010. Tatarstan is approximately 900 miles east of Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

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