If any state should be leading the way in biofuels development, it’s Florida.
With abundant sunshine, a long growing season, and plentiful waste from agriculture and from a big human population, the possibilities are obvious for refining biological materials, including algae, into clean liquid fuel. That could reduce Florida’s reliance on imported fuel and cut greenhouse emissions — and produce cheaper gasoline as well. After years of subsidies and promises, however, biofuels are a small component of the fuel mix, and are not expected to get much larger anytime soon.
The new Indian River County BioEnergy Center that broke ground last week with great fanfare — and $125 million in federal subsidies and loan guarantees — is designed to produce 8 million gallons of bioethanol per year. Florida consumes about 25 million gallons a day of liquid fuel. But despite slow development, biofuel facilities in Florida are moving ahead, including Algenol’s much-hyped laboratory and planned refinery in Lee County. Algenol’s evangelistic CEO Paul Woods and his supporters such as Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah believe the company’s process is so promising that it could help make the county a magnet for renewable technology, with a big payoff in jobs and economic diversification.
What’s needed now is a state energy policy with renewable energy targets and concrete incentives for the development of biofuels and other alternative technology. Wanted, depending on who’s doing the asking: loan guarantees, grants and greater freedom for utilities to recover the costs of alternative fuel development, such as the kind Algenol hopes to do with FPL. That’s going to be a tough sell, with Tallahassee considering deep budget cuts. Subsidies are under attack as money-wasting distortions of the market, which should dictate winners and losers, not government. Years of subsidies or incentives have not produced a biofuels industry that can stand on its own feet. Corn ethanol is the most widely used biofuel, but it needs a 45-cent-per-gallon federal price subsidy.
Algenol received $10 million from Lee County to locate here, and has won a $25 million federal grant. “That’s very costly, and unrealistic if allowed to perpetuate,” says David Mica, of the Florida Petroleum Council.
Boost needed
But without a boost from government, we could miss the opportunity to reduce Florida’s energy imports, now estimated at $60 billion annually for transportation and electricity fuel, and keep some of that money here to generate jobs. Jobs. That’s the magic word that could turn conservative dominated Tallahassee in favor of a policy to encourage biofuels.
Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature are intent on sweeping spending cuts. But Scott is equally committed to creating jobs. State Sen. Mike Bennett, whose District 21 includes part of Lee County, says “(Scott)’s going to be looking at what can create jobs in Florida quickly, and at the same time bring the cost of government down, for example by using bio-diesel in state trucks or school buses.” There is already a federal mandate that fuel companies use 36 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2022. With criticism growing of corn ethanol’s energy inefficiency, environmental impacts and controversial effects on engine parts, Florida should be trying to grab a part of that mandate with cleaner, more efficient biofuels. But there is a bigger issue. The costs of fossil fuels in terms of human disease; poisoned air, water and soil; or an altered climate are hard to calculate, but are real and inevitable, and fall ultimately on the taxpayer. They are a power ful argument in favor of aggressively encouraging clean, safe, renewable alternative energy, including Florida biofuels. Urge our leaders in Tallahassee to seize the opportunity to make Florida a world leader in biofuels.
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