Irish agribusiness company ClonBio Group will invest $500m (€456.98m) in a new US biorefinery in Jefferson, Wisconsin. According to RTE, the new investment is part of ClonBio’s expansion plans in Wisconsin, after the company bought the refinery site in 2022. The latest investment follows another round of $100m spent on its upgrade. The announcement came during Enterprise Ireland’s programme of business events in the US, led and attended by Ireland’s Prime Minister (Taioseach) Leo Varadkar and the CEO of Enterprise Ireland Leo Clancy. In a press statement, Varadkar said ClonBio’s new plant in Wisconsin is “a model for further Irish-US collaboration” and praised the investment for spearheading efforts towards a greener economy. “Ireland is a very open economy, with huge exports relative to our size,” he continued. “We have some extraordinary Irish companies who are the best at what they do globally.” Heavy polluting industries are increasingly turning to biofuels to help reduce the overall carbon footprint in the atmosphere, with giants such as BP planning to deliver around 100 million barrels per day by 2030. Others are looking to convert used resources into biofuels. European tyre recycling company Life for Tyres Group, for example, is planning to open a US processing facility in the US state of Louisiana to turn end-of-life tyres into sustainable commodities such as biofuel feedstock, recovered carbon black and scrap. Biofuels can be produced from both agricultural waste as well as animal fat.