News Bite

It's Made No Biofuel For Six Years, But Feds Still Pumping This Granholm Energy Handout

State-taxpayer subsidized ‘alternative energy capital of the world’ project now making molasses to feed livestock

A biorefinery in Alpena, Michigan, was touted in 2009 by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm as the type of business that would make Michigan “the alternative energy capital of the world.”

Despite receiving $4 million from the state agency in charge of corporate and developer subsidies, and another $22 million from the federal government, the plant was not a success. The company that ran it, American Process Inc., was sold in 2015. Now, the plant produces wood molasses to feed livestock.

Yet six years after the facility last produced ethanol in 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy is still promoting it on a website, boasting that it has created 31 new jobs, retained 200 others, and could be hired by other companies in the "growing U.S. bioindustry.”

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.