renewaFUEL LLC, a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc, has announced that Cliffs' Board of Directors has approved a plan for the construction and operation of a next generation biomass fuel production facility at the Telkite Technology Park, which is located at Sawyer Airport near Marquette.

renewaFUEL intends to move forward with a lease agreement for the use of two large aircraft hangars, which formerly housed B-52 aircraft when the facility was part of KI Sawyer Air Force Base. renewaFUEL's lease of the hangars is subject to the final approval of the Marquette County Board of Commissioners and the Federal Aviation Administration. Once begun, construction and renovation at the facility, a USD 19 million capital project, is expected to take approximately nine months.

Mr William A Brake chairman of renewaFUEL and executive vice president at human and technical resources for Cliffs Natural Resources said that "We are pleased to be able to begin the necessary renovations and equipment installations to commence operations at the Sawyer location. This is an exciting new economic development opportunity for renewaFUEL and Michigan's growing renewable energy industry."

The plant is expected to employ approximately 25 people and will produce 150,000 tonnes per year of high-energy, low emission biofuel cubes. The cubes are a composite of sustainably collected wood and agricultural feedstocks, which will be supplied from local farmers and loggers for the facility.

Mr Brake said that "Our objective with this first full-scale plant is to establish safe, profitable production and demonstrate to utilities and other industries currently using non renewable energy sources that renewaFUEL energy cubes are a cost effective way to supplement or replace fossil fuels in their operations. We anticipate being in production at the Sawyer facility by the middle of 2010."

renewaFUEL will be able to aggregate the multiple feedstocks and engineer energy cubes to meet exacting specifications of individual customers. Because of their size and density, the cubes can be used in most solid fuel systems with little or no modifications required.