AUGUSTA - Biorefineries could bring an economic boost to rural Maine, but no developer wants to be first, said Scott Christiansen, executive director of the Fractionation Development Center in Rumford.

Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, presented a bill Monday to the Legislature's Appropriations Committee seeking a $12.5 million bond issue for start-up costs of biorefineries to generate specialty chemicals, power and fuel. He hopes the money will be included in a $397 million bond package the governor has proposed.

Christiansen said the state would loan the money to the developers. Having the money there would decrease the risk of breaking into the sector, Christiansen said.

"There's a lot of money circulating around," Christiansen said. "Everybody wants to be second."

He added, "for Maine to have a second biorefinery, we have to have a first."

Ideally the money would be awarded in the second or third year of the package.

"This shows investors that the money is available to help move the project along," Bryant said.

Biorefineries are an efficient and environmentally friendly means of producing materials, Bryant said, and also are an opportunity to bring jobs to the area.

"The technology is just on the verge of being created," he said.

Bryant, who works for NewPage in Rumford while not at the State House, said paper companies would greatly benefit from biorefineries.

At paper mills, bark is chipped to make paper, and the rest is burned off, Bryant said. In a biorefinery, instead of burning off the excess, it would be refined then turned into a gas. While scientists are still determining the uses for these gases, possible uses are for plastics or pharmaceutical companies, Bryant said.

Christiansen said once the first biorefinery is built, others will follow.

"Maine needs to develop its own energy sources, and it needs to have a strategy for developing new industries in the forested areas of the state," he said.