GM Announces Plan To Go Green With Ethanol Production

Washington D.C. (AHN) - In an effort to reinvent itself as a green company, General Motors, the nation's largest automaker, has joined up with a company working to develop ethanol from products like waste paper and wood.

The auto giant on Thursday announced a partnership in cellulosic-ethanol company Mascoma to create an alternative fuel from products other than corn. GM and Mascoma did not reveal the size of the automaker's investment.

GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said that the new project is GM's effort to make fuel from nongrain plants. The Cambridge, Mass.-based project would be GM's second investment in a cellulosic ethanol company.

Earlier this year, GM bought a stake in Coskata Inc. of Warrenville, Ill. , which has already begun producing small amounts of ethanol from agricultural waste and other biomass, including garbage from landfills.

The new ethanol project would also help supply the fuel to power GM's FlexFuel autos, which run on either gasoline or E85, an ethanol-gasoline blend.