The Lansing State Journal reports that the Mid-Michigan Innovation Alliance will use a $15 million federal grant to jump-start a new manufacturing sector in mid-Michigan to create products from the state's plentiful supply of grains and plants instead of from petrochemicals. The Alliance represents a 13-county region that stretches from Lansing to Saginaw and (according to spokesman and MSU exec Paul Hunt) seeks to:

"...capture the entire value chain, from the seed of the plant or from the tree ... all the way through to the bio-refineries that make the foundational chemicals, to the (manufacturing) plants that turn the foundational chemicals into the plastics and other polymers"

Also see Granholm Applauds Decision Awarding Michigan $30 Million in Federal Workforce Innovation Grants from Michigan.gov

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