Dayne Walling, Mayor of Flint, MI travels to Sweden
Dayne Walling, the mayor of Flint, Michigan is visiting Sweden this week, hoping to bring back more jobs to his hometown, and green jobs at that. He will also attend the 5th Global Yes Summit in Leksand, Dalarna.
“We want cities all over this country to adopt the Swedish biogas model because that international business headquarters will be right here in Flint,” Walling tells ABC 12, a local affiliate of the ABC network.
ABC 12’s reporter Cathy Shafran writes that “the mayor’s trip will take him to a Swedish city that is the source of a biogas project similar to that which will soon break ground at Flint’s wastewater treatment plant. It is a project that involves turning the community’s human waste and waste water into biomethane, which can then be burned in engines. Flint’s version of the biogas concept should be up and running by late 2010 or early 2011, but Walling says he will be looking for ways to promote it as a business model while meeting with Swedish Biogas officials this week.”
Flint, Michigan is the brithplace of General Motors, and was once center of an industrial area employing some 80,000 workers, of which only 7,000 jobs remain today. It is also the hometown of the film maker Michael Moore, and the former ambassador to Sweden, Michael Wood. Today, Flint is pushing for a role a new economy based on renewable energy, and has joined with Swedish Biogas International in a waste-to-energy partnership.
“We want the job development. So for Swedish biogas to have their North American headquarters here, we want them to not stop with Flint. We want them to adopt the same technology because that means job growth for us. So they have the facility at the waste water treatment plant. But just like every company has a business headquarters, you need managers, executives, accountants, legal staff. We want those jobs here in Flint,” Dayne Walling tells ABC 12.
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