Chemical Guide

Vero Beach, a joint venture between New Planet Energy and INEOS BioEnergy, will soon find out how much it will cost to build Florida’s first bioethanol plant.

Valero Beach has been planning to acquire Ocean Spray Cranberries’ former grapefruit-processing plant and turn it into a biofuels refinery.

If the construction of the plant goes ahead, it is expected to process unwanted garden foliage into eight million gallons of ethanol every year. 150 construction jobs will be created and 40 to 50 full-time jobs.

$50 million (€37 million) has already been awarded by the US Department of Energy, however it is not yet known how far this grant will stretch.

When asked why Florida was chosen for the location of this bioethanol refinery, Tex Carter, the VP and chairman of INEOS New Planet BioEnergy, explained that the copious amounts of vegetation waste produced in Florida will be used as the plant’s first feedstock.

If this is successful, the company could soon look at using other kinds of organic garbage in the plant.

Currently, the ethanol sold at Florida petrol stations is imported. Producing ethanol in the state would significantly lower costs.

Carter said: ‘This is a market for our product where there’s no competition. There’s no domestic ethanol production in Florida, so we would have the ability to establish the manufacturing of clean ethanol.’

Source: biofuels-news.com