April 26, 2024
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Florida Biotech
Biofuel Projects: Barely a Pulse
Chart showing private biofuel projects that have received state grant money in the past five years.
Cynthia Barnett | 2/27/2012
In the past five years, the state — through the Office of Energy or Department of Agriculture — has distributed more than $40 million in grants to various biofuel projects around Florida. Not a single project that has received grant money is operating. The Alico project and the grant money it received was transferred to New Planet Energy and is on track to become Florida's first commercial bioethanol facility. Following is a list of private biofuel projects that have received state money in the past five years. University grants and grants under $250,000 are not included.
| Project | Grant money | Plan / Status |
| Citrus Energy | $2.5 million | Based in Clewiston, backers hopes to build a 4-million-gallon-per-year ethanol biorefinery to use citrus waste to produce ethanol. Lost private financing; $749,306 in grant money spent. |
| Alico | $2.5 million | Based in LaBelle, the company proposed a biomass plant, but executives changed their minds during the real estate crash. Both the project and grant funding were transferred to New Planet Energy for the Indian River County project, which has broken ground on what looks like it may become the first commercial ethanol facility in the state. |
| Losonoco | $2.5 million | The company aimed to purchase, refurbish and operate a shuttered fuel ethanol production facility in Mulberry in Polk County as a 12-million-gallon-per-year plant, doubling its original capacity. Losonoco is no longer an active company, according to the Division of Corporations; no funds were spent, and the grant was returned. |
| Gulf Coast Energy of Walton | $7.0 million | Plans called for building a $62-million ethanol and biodiesel plant in Mossy Head, but Gulf Coast Energy decided against the Mossy Head site and has concentrated most of its bioenergy demonstration in Alabama. |
| BP Biofuels | $7.0 million | Originally funded as Highlands Ethanol, Verenium Corp. and British Petroleum partnered to develop and commercialize a 36-million-gallon cellulosic ethanol plant in Highlands County. Lykes Bros. would grow the feedstock. The plant was supposed to open in 2011 but hasn't broken ground. BP bought out the biofuels assets (the company known as Vercipia) from Verenium and says advances in technology have delayed the project slightly, but it's on track. More than 1,000 acres of what will eventually be a 20,000-acre farm have been planted with energy grass; BP says it will hire between 600 and 800 during construction, which should begin late this year. |
| U.S. Envirofuels | $7.0 million | A plan to build a $47-million ethanol plant in Highlands County has been delayed but is moving forward. |
| Liberty Industries | $4.0 million | A $38-million Liberty County facility that would have produced ethanol and electricity using primarily forest waste products was canceled in 2009. |
| Agri-Source Fuels | $4.0 million | A plan to convert a shuttered OJ plant into a $21-million biodiesel plant in Pensacola fell through, but the company is completing a biodiesel operation in Dade City. |
| Southeast Biofuels | $500,000 | Southeast Biofuels aims to build a nearly $6-million pilot plant in Auburndale to produce ethanol from citrus peels. |
| Sigarca | $499,500 | A bioenergy plant on the grounds of the Southeastern Livestock Pavilion in Ocala to process horse waste into renewable energy ran for a year. |
| Southeast Renewable Fuels | $2.5 million | The sweet sorghum-to-ethanol plant in Hendry County is delayed but not dead. |
| Vecenergy | $2.5 million | Plans for a biodiesel plant in Manatee County were terminated; no funds were spent. |
