Florida e-grass farm might head to Texas

Biomass Investment Group, which planned a 20,000-acre "e-grass" farm and power plant in Florida, might instead build the farm in Texas, a company representative said Thursday.

The project also changed ownership to Innovative Energy Group of Florida based in Navarre, according to papers filed last week with the Florida Public Service Commission indicated the changes in their plans.

The company has been unable to find enough suitable land in Florida, said Robert "Schef" Wright, an attorney representing the project.

"We haven't given up on Florida," said Wright, "but we have not had success at getting 18,000 acres of land for 25 years at a price that would work."

Trouble finding the right property has already delayed the project two years. In May 2006, Progress Energy Florida agreed to purchase power from the company's planned 130-megawatt plant. The plant was supposed to come on line in 2009, but the in-service date has been pushed back to Dec. 1, 2011, Wright said. The company will try to have the plant working earlier.

The company plans to grow a fast-growing reedy grass known as arundo donax. Many environmentalists consider the grass an invasive species, and its growth is strictly regulated in California, which has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate it.

Wright said he did not think the plant would be invasive in Florida or Texas. He also did not foresee any problems in getting the appropriate permission to grow the grass in Texas. The company plans to work with university agricultural cooperative services to help control the grass.

The grass would be heated and converted into a liquid fuel that would then be transported to the company's Florida power plant, probably by barge, Wright said. The company has not yet selected a site for either the farm or the power plant. Ideally, the farm would be located in southern, coastal Texas, near a port. The power plant would be located somewhere between Tampa and Apalachicola, again near a port, and near Progress Energy transmission lines.

If the fuel is shipped by fossil-fuel powered barges, will it still offset enough carbon dioxide emissions to be worthwhile from a climate change standpoint?

Wright said he was "99.9 percent sure" that the e-grass power plant would still produce less greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuel plants. However, the company has not yet looked into it.

"I'll agree with you that ultimately everything needs to be looked at on a total carbon cycle, and I can't say we have done that," Wright said.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer