A trail-blazing plant that will produce advanced biofuels and generate electricity broke ground in Indian River County this week.
The $130 million Indian River BioEnergy Center, scheduled to open in mid-2012, will start with a yield of 8 million gallons of ethanol annually, along with 6 megawatts of renewable power from local yard, vegetative and household wastes.
Located at Vero Beach's abandoned Ocean Spray facility near the county landfill, the center is the first commercial-scale plant in the nation to use INEOS gasification and fermentation technology.
Consistent with our goal of enabling sustainable transportation using nonfood crop biofuels, we will license this world-changing technology to partners across the U.S. and beyond, bringing secure, renewable fuel and power to communities globally, INEOS Bio CEO Peter Williams said Wednesday.
Williams is also chairman of INPB, INEOS' joint venture with New Planet Energy, a development company for advanced biofuels and energy projects.
INEOS, the worlds fourth largest petrochemical company, received a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and $2.5 million from the state to kickstart the Florida venture. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has conditionally committed a $75 million loan guarantee.
The project will provide 380 direct and indirect jobs (including 175 construction jobs) over the next two years and 50 full-time jobs in Indian River County, whose 13.6 percent unemployment rate is the 23rd highest in the nation.
Using naturally occurring bacteria, the INEOS technology directly converts syngas derived from biomass into ethanol. While some technologies rely on one primary source of feedstock, the INEOS Bio process can produce ethanol and renewable electricity from numerous nonfood feedstocks, including construction and municipal solid waste, forestry and agricultural waste.
The plant's electric-generation output to the grid, about 2 megawatts, will be enough to power 1,400 homes.
Mike Antheil, president of the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy, hailed the project. "We support this type of distributive, renewable energy," he told Sunshine State News on Thursday.
Coincidentally, Antheil was touring Waste Management's Wheelabrator facility in Pompano Beach, where municipal solid waste is already being converted into clean energy at the 67-megawatt plant.
The Pompano facility was the first stop on FARE's 10-city Florida Renewable Energy Tour, which is highlighting the job generation and local economic development of renewable energy projects.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
