 |
 |
Ethanol: Miracle or Mistake? Florida is sinking millions into ethanol research and grants. But nobody is even close to making it profitable. Florida Trend, for publication on 7/01/08 "At his global warming summit in Miami last year, Gov. Charlie Crist held out ethanol as a major tool in reducing greenhouse gases. No state, he said, can match Florida’s capacity to produce ethanol. Since virtually all the ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn, Crist was anticipating a time when Florida entrepreneurs could take various forms of cellulose that are plentiful in the state — citrus waste, sugar cane waste, plants and trees — and distill ethanol from them. Following Crist’s green lead, the Legislature this year mandated that all gas sold in Florida have at least 10% ethanol by the end of 2010. That translates into Florida needing some 861 million gallons of ethanol annually in less than three years. To spur production in Florida, the Legislature allocated $8 million this year for bioenergy project grants and another $7 million for renewable energy and efficiency grants. That’s on top of the $60 million the state already has given to would-be ethanol developers and other biofuel researchers in Florida. The federal government, which has been pushing cellulosic ethanol for more than 30 years without so much as one commercial refinery to show for it, has mandated 36 billion gallons of ethanol — 16 billion from cellulose — in use by 2022 and is funding a host of research efforts around the country. Aside from the now-debated question whether ethanol may actually be worse for the environment than fossil fuels, cost and risk remain a big issue, even with oil spiking northward of $130 a barrel. Now, just as the ethanol arithmetic has started to make economic sense, the rising price of corn has driven the price of animal feed upward, making citrus waste more attractive in the short term financially for growers to sell as a feed source. Producing ethanol also can require copious water - an issue in a state already struggling with the demand on its water resources. In June, Florida agribusiness firm and land developer Alico announced it was abandoning plans to build a plant in LaBelle that would have turned yard, wood and agricultural residue into ethanol, hydrogen, ammonia and electricity. The company said it wouldn’t take the $33-million federal grant that would have helped build the plant because the risks outweighed “any reasonably anticipated benefits for Alico.” Transporting the source crop for ethanol to the refinery drives up its costs, so Florida will need a score or more of small refineries scattered throughout the state to efficiently exploit timberland as an ethanol source. But just because a technology carries a “green” label doesn’t mean local residents will welcome an ethanol refinery. With the state and federal government dictating ethanol use, an ethanol process doesn’t have to prove cheaper, more efficient or more environmentally friendly than gas; it just has to prove superior to the other alternatives to meet the government-required demand. And so it’s inevitable that Florida entrepreneurs and researchers will continue to chase ethanol development." http://www.floridatrend.com/article.asp?page=1&aID=71006719.92225902.640367.9286073.5528433.580&aID2=49250&mostread=true -- ********************************************************************** Dr. Ann C. Wilkie Tel: (352)392-8699 Soil and Water Science Department Fax: (352)392-7008 University of Florida-IFAS P.O. Box 110960 E-mail: [log in to unmask] Gainesville, FL 32611-0960 ______________________________________________________________________ Campus location: Environmental Microbiology Laboratory (Bldg. 246). http://campusmap.ufl.edu/ ______________________________________________________________________ BioEnergy and Sustainable Technology Society http://grove.ufl.edu/~bests/ **********************************************************************