A Cary-based nonprofit spun out of the N.C. Biotechnology Center released a set of guidelines today to help promote responsible global use of genetically modified trees.

The report from the Institute of Forest Biotechnology is partly designed to ease fears of the public and environmentalists that increasing interest in biotechnology trees will cause more harm than good.

The institute also announced that it's preparing to plant engineered American Elm and American Chestnut trees at the campus of the Biofuels Center of North Carolina in Oxford using the new principles.

Biotech and forestry companies, paper manufacturers, scientists and others are seeking to develop trees that are more resistant to pests, disease and climate change.

After years of false starts, the state's first ethanol production facility is weeks away from making renewable fuel on a commercial scale.

Clean Burn Fuels, about 20 miles west of Fayetteville in Hoke County, is in the final stages of testing and expects to begin producing 5 million gallons of ethanol a month in July, said company president Jack Carlisle.

The $100 million facility will produce 60 million gallons a year to offset the ethanol now imported by the state, Carlisle said.

"All of it will be used locally," said Carlisle, who lives in Cary.