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A B.C. company plans to start construction this summer on an $85-million plant in Parkland County that will produce wood pellets as a greener form of fuel.

Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. intends to build the facility near the CN Rail line outside Entwistle, 100 kilometres west of Edmonton, according to a news release.

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It will be the first plant the Richmond, B.C.-based company has put up in Alberta and is expected to employ about 70 people when it starts operating next spring.

The high-heat, low-ash pellets are typically burned for home, institutional or industrial heating, used for animal bedding or turned into fuel for electricity generation. One of Pinnacle’s biggest clients is Britain’s largest single-site coal power plant, which brings them in to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

The pellets are made from compressed wood waste often treated as garbage.

Mark Edwards, the county’s director of economic diversification, said the development is important.