Crist endorses ethanol plant at sugar mill

Gov. Charlie Crist has endorsed a plan to build an ethanol plant on land that the state is trying to buy from U.S. Sugar for Everglades restoration.

Because he’s concerned about the fate of the 1,800 U.S. Sugar employees who depend on the company to survive, converting that land to ethanol production “is one of the things I’d like to see,” Crist said Wednesday in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times.

Although Crist did not endorse a project by a specific company, an ethanol manufacturer backed by General Motors has already spent months negotiating with U.S. Sugar to build a plant on its land. (For more, check out The Fueling Station.)

Steve Bousquet and Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writers

*

Comments

Wow! How innovative of Crist. He is really amazing. If he can get GM to go down to Clewiston and provide jobs making ethanol then the world is a better place. How perfect.

Its lipstick on a pig

i'm insulted.

[Donald Lance]

And what does Charlie plan to make ethanol out of? Sugar cane?

So JD cries enough about jobs and the Gov responds. Between this and JD spending $1 million to take Putnam's seat in Congress, I think I'm going to be sick.

What happened to Gov. Crist's restoration of the Everglades statements?

If I see anymore JDTV, I think I'll cry.

It will be cheaper to pay each of the 1800 employee's $1,000,000.00 then to build a ethanol factory in the middle of the everglades.

[bilco5]

Hey Florida, please remember that McCain didn't participate in the Iowa Primary because he does not support ethanol production. The Iowa Farm lobby won't tolerate that. He does support offshore drilling. Once that cat gets out of the bag, there won't be any stopping it. Here's what that would look like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvNgjTOFhv4

[GLOBAL WARMING IS A REAL PROBLEM]

Charlie, did you think we didn't see this coming? A Republican actually concerned about the environment? That hasn't happened in at least 50 years.

Please understand that green energy does not mean burning carbon producing ethanol. Republicans, when will you start to listen to real scientists and not those you or your corporate masters hire to get the results that support your continued ignorance?

Is the Federal Ethanol program the reason JD wants Adam's spot in Congress? I guess there's always a reason to spend over a million bucks on a Poke County Senate race.

[Chris Kise is an idiot on global warming.]

The latest Old Farmer's Almanac predicts cooler temperatures not only next year, but for possibly the next half century. Via USA Today:

Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on Tuesday saying a study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the next half century.

"We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes," writes meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D'Aleo. "Studying these and other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future."

These predictions match those of Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, remarkably well.

The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

I think we can now say there is a consensus for Global Cooling. Although we can count on the deniers to persist in their Chicken Little ways.

[Tom]

Can Ethanol be made out of salt water?

So, ethanol, which uses more energy to produce than the outcome... will be produced in the everglades... how is ethanol produced? Is the run-off? what will be used as the primary source for the ethanol (donald is right)...???

For some reason, I don't thinking producing fuel in the everglades is going to be cleaner than growing cane...

After this new ethanol plant pollutes Lake Okeechobee, The Everglades, The Calloosahatchee River and Sanibel Island will the taxpayers give them $1.8 billion to stop? BTW: What do those losers at GM know about anything except begging for government money?

This whole US Sugar deal needs a LOT of lipstick. It's getting smellier by the minute.

Something has to be done to keep the illegal aliens employed cheap so Big Time GOP'ers can make more money off of them. Will an ethanol plant do the trick?

This whole US Sugar deal needs a LOT of lipstick. It's getting smellier by the minute.

---

That's for sure.

[Gator(R)]

Bilco 5 - They should have photoshopped some greasy oil on the water and beach, some dead seagulls and a couple dead whales in the picture along with the oil rigs. As it, I think the oil rigs look pretty cool.

I thought the bill being yammered about sets the minimum distance from shore at 50 miles, not fifty feet, but I'm leaning towards 50 feet after seeing that clip. Laying on the beach staring at a vast expanse of water is boring, breaking it up with a few rigs is decorative genius.

Great clip, I imagine its changing minds everywhere.