Lake County officials say they are prepared to shake off their rust belt blight and lead the nation's biofuel revolution.

The county's Solid Waste Management District voted Thursday to draft a contract with Genahol-Powers 1LLC and Indiana Ethanol Power LLC, both of Evansville, to turn 90 percent of the county's municipal garbage into a biofuel and more traditional recyclable materials.

Genahol promises to build a plant employing 140 people. Indiana Ethanol offers to build a plant employing 110 people. If built, the plants would be among the first in the nation.

But there are doubts about the technology and the economics of bio-ethanol production, sceptics say.

Stoking those doubts is Allied Waste, which already provides scavenger service for much of the county and is competing with the bio-fuel firms for the county's business. Allied carries trash to landfills.

The solid waste board is including Allied in its contract talks to dispose of residual waste from the ethanol plants or as a back up if the plants cannot perform.

J.W. Spears, an engineering consultant hired to examine the technical feasibility of the waste-to-fuel proposals, gives a cautious thumbs-up to the project.

Spears says the ethanol proposals, a mixture of conventional and cutting edge technologies, may suffer start-up problems and down time that could increase costs and disrupt garbage disposal. Changes in the energy market also could endanger the plans economic viability.

Nevertheless, Spears concludes the economic and environmental positives outweigh the risks.

Spears states Indiana Ethanol would use proven technology to collect, separate, ferment and distill raw organic waste into fuel.

However, Spears concluded in a report that a key step in Indiana Ethanol's production isn't being done yet on a commercial basis.

Spears concluded that Genahol would use conventional waste collection and separation and that the company's gasification/distillation process has been in commercial use for many years -- just not in a waste-to-fuel application.

James Metros, a spokesman for Allied, disagrees and argued recently to the board, "The science works, but the economics fail. They could end up tripling their price instead of cutting their price."

Donald Bogner, president of Genahol Powers, said he is prepared to prove the sceptics wrong. He said his company could process waste at $17.50 per ton -- less than half Allied's proposed cost -- representing a $280 million savings over 20 years.

"You can see why Allied doesn't want us to go ahead," Bogner said. "That would be $280 million no longer going into their pocket."

Jeffery Langbehn, director of the Lake County Solid Waste Management District, said criticizing biofuel as pie in the sky doesn't worry him.

"Five years ago we didn't have biofuel cars," Langbehn said. "We didn't have hybrid cars. Time marches on."

He said the county contract with the ethanol firms will prevent wild escalation of processing prices.