Gasoline prices are creeping up again. However, most Florida officials, with good reason, continue to oppose drilling for petroleum along our coast.
Many hope to turn citrus peels and pulp into fuel. Juice companies create roughly 500 tons of waste annually. Much of it is dried and fed to cattle. Some is used in cleaning products.
Several years ago, Dr. Lonnie Ingram and other University of Florida professors created a method of converting citrus waste and other agricultural products into ethanol.
"Farm to Fuel Summits" have been sponsored by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in 2006, 2007 and 2008. A fourth summit is slated for July.
To spur development, Florida gave Verenium, a Massachusetts company, $7 million to use Ingram's process to make ethanol in Jennings, La. Verenium knows Ingram's method works. The company opened its Louisiana test facility in 1999.
Florida's Lykes Brothers Inc. will grow crops on 20,000 acres of land in Highlands County next to a proposed Verenium plant. Construction could cost $300 million.
Unfortunately, Verenium faces financial issues. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported "an outside auditor believes its operating plan and existing working capital deficit raises doubt about the company's ability to continue operations."
Several other companies have received state grants.
Agri-Source Fuels of Pensacola received $4 million in state money for a biodeisel plant, using chicken-processing waste in an old citrus building in Dade City. In November, the owner reported that he began losing money when oil prices fell.
Out-of-state companies have forged ahead.
Florida's Progress Energy has tested fuel from New Generation Biofuel. Their plant is located in Baltimore, Md. Its research facility is in Rome, ltaly. Fuel can be made from "palm oil, soybean oil, fish oil, corn oil, canola oil, jatropha oil, algae oil, yellow grease, recycled vegetable oils or animal fats."
They also claim their fuel will "reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution, promote energy independence through the growth of domestic energy sources and establish a sustainable, renewable future energy supply."
In January, New Generation Biofuel signed a contract and shipped the first truckload of fuel to Delta Chemical in Lake Mary, Fla.
There are other Florida projects. In LaBelle, a company called My Dream Fuel is growing jatropha, a shrub that thrives on poor, arid soil. It is said to produce 10 times more oil than corn grown on Midwest agricultural land.
Floridians need jobs. Because University of Florida scientists pioneered ethanol production years ago, it is unfortunate we have been unable to recycle citrus waste and other Florida crops to create a profitable local energy company.
With the right push, Gatorfuel still might become as successful as another University of Florida invention, a sports drink called Gatorade.
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