Britain launches its first sugar-fuel plant

Britain officially launched Thursday its first bioethanol plant, which will produce millions of litres of fuel each year from sugar.
The plant, situated next to a British Sugar processing factory in Wissington, eastern England, started producing bioethanol for the domestic transport market in September.
"We've got a big potential to save, with these fuels, a lot of damage that is being done to the planet," said Lord Jeff Rooker, the sustainable food and farming minister, at the official launch.
The plant cost 20 million pounds (41 million dollars, 28 million euros) to build.
"We're very pleased with this investment to make this a practical reality on a practical scale -- this is not experimental, this will put fuels into cars."
The 70 million litres, or 55,000 tonnes, of bioethanol the plant will produce each year will go towards the government's target for renewables to make up five percent of fuel sold at fuel stations by 2010.
Around one million tonnes of biofuels are required to meet the target.
The plant uses some 110,000 tonnes of sugar grown in Britain, which is surplus to quota allowances and can no longer be exported from the European Union. Those regulations were a primary factor in building the plant.