Showdown at the PSC over Progress Energy, FPL nuke plant charges

As our colleague Robert Trigaux notes in his Venture blog, Friday will bring what promises to be the final showdown at the state Public Service Commission over whether Progress Energy and Florida Power & Light can charge customers years in advance for building new nuclear plants.

Estimated cost for the two plants: $35 billion. The one Progress Energy hopes to build in Levy County accounts for half of that -- $17 billion.

Once viewed as a slam-dunk for the utilities, Trigaux points out, now the question of what the PSC will do is definitely up in the air.

"Critics say investors, not consumers, should bear more of the risk of nuclear power plants," he writes. "And economic circumstances have stalled some of the initial momentum for new nuclear power. Enough so to ask: will Progress Energy itself ultimately decide the nuke plants are no longer worth the growing controversy in the state?"

Further complicating the PSC's decision is Gov. Charlie Crist's selection of two new members in the wake of an ongoing scandal that has led to suggestions that it's time to change how the state regulates its utilities.

--Craig Pittman

Good news: Obama backs biofuels; bad news: EPA says corn ethanol makes warming worse

The Obama Administration unveiled a new plan Tuesday "to shield corn ethanol producers from the credit crisis, work with them to cut their use of natural gas and coal in ethanol production, and nudge the auto industry toward production of vehicles that can use ethanol at concentrations of up to 85 percent," the New York Times is reporting.

"There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here, created by the Congress, to assist in building biorefineries, in helping existing refineries convert from fossil-fuel power to renewable power," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

(read White House press release here)

That's the good news for biofuels producers. The bad news: "The Environmental Protection Agency says that corn ethanol — as made today — has a worse impact on climate than gasoline when land use changes are considered," the Associated Press says.

So the EPA has "proposed a new alternative-fuel standard that will likely prohibit some corn-ethanol production processes based on their greenhouse-gas emissions and encourage other advanced biofuels," according to CNN.

Restricting some ethanol-production processes "provides a greater market incentive for advanced biofuel technologies such as sugarcane," CNN noted -- and that's good news for Florida, where companies are experimenting with turning cane into biofuels.

More on emissions rules for ethanol from Matthew Wald of The New York Times.

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

[Associated Press photo]

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Florida offers grants for energy projects

The state of Florida is seeking proposals for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects under a $15-million grant program. The program is open to local governments, state agencies, universities, as well as private firms and nonprofit organizations.
Each grant is worth up to $2.5-million, with at least $8-million going to bioenergy projects.

-- David Adams, Times staff writer

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Crist endorses building ethanol plant at U.S. Sugar mill being bought for Everglades restoration

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 several months negotiating with U.S. Sugar to build a plant on its land.

Negotiations with the ethanol company, Coskata, have been on hold while talks about the buyout proceed, said Robert Coker of U.S. Sugar, “but depending on what happens in the next month or so, we’ll probably be sitting back down with them.”

Most ethanol manufacturing plants are built to produce 50 million gallons a year, Coker said. “We were talking about a facility that was substantially larger,” the sugar executive said.

Coskata, an Illinois-based firm, is backed not only by GM but also by Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, who was one of the keynote speakers at Crist's 2007 climate change summit in Miami. The company specializes in turning waste products such as sugar cane leaves into ethanol, and its executives boast that when their demonstration plant in Madison, Penn., opens next year they will be able to produce ethanol for about $1 a gallon.

[AP photo of U.S. Sugar's mill in Clewiston]

--Craig Pittman and Steve Bousquet

Florida presents its 3rd annual Farm to Fuel Summit

The state of Florida is holding its third annual Farm to Fuel Summit later this month (July 30-Aug 1) in Orlando. As in previous years its an agenda packed with discussion about the development in biofuels in Florida, widely considered to have some of the greatest second generation biofuels potential due to its plentiful agricultural waste and forest.

(Register here for the summit)

The summit will include an agronomists workshop dedicated to helping farmers understand what are the best fuel crops to grow in Florida. "For the first time we are developing information for the agricultural community about what crops we can grow here," says Jay Levenstein, deputy commissioner for Agriculture and Consumer Services. "We have a lot of information we can give them."

The summit will be attended by Ed Schafer, the US Under-Secretary for Agriculture, as well as Bob Dineen, head of the US Renewable Fuels Association.

Jack Youngblood, a member of the pro-football Hall of Fame (St Louis Rams) is expected to explain his interest in the biofuels potential of north Florida forestland, along with a group of other professional sports stars, including Ryan Klesko and John Smoltz (baseball) and Bobby Rahal (motor racing).

Panelists will look at the growth of biofuels infrastructure in the state, including pipelines and fuel storage terminals, as  well as  the development of second-generation cellulosic ethanol technology.

Among the panelists will be two names familiar to readers of this blog: Bradley Krohn, president of United States EnviroFuels in Tampa, will give a talk titled 'Construction of a Commercial Sugarto-Ethanol BioRefinery,' while Dr. Jose Sifontes, president of Sigarca in Gainesville will speak on 'Bioenergy and Agricultural Products from Animal Waste.'

- David Adams

UF study: Farmers & foresters can harvest big bucks from the carbon market

Florida’s farmers and foresters can reap hundreds of millions of dollars under proposed climate change legislation now pending in Congress, according to a new study released this week by the University of Florida.

The report, titled "Opportunities for Greenhouse Gas Reduction in Forestry and Agriculture in Florida," contends that farmers  can earn more than $340-million a year by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and selling emission credits under a federal cap and trade program like the one created by the Lieberman-Warner bill now under consideration.

“Our report demonstrates that we can combine the ethical imperative of responding to climate change with power of the market, while protecting Florida’s natural resources,” Dr. Stephen Mulkey, lead author of the report from the University of Florida School of Natural Resources and Environment, said in a press release sent out by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Among the report's findings: Florida farmers can reduce 7.36 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from increased use of wood, energy crops, crop residues and ethanol as biofuels, for an offset value of  $147-million per year.

“We are always looking for new ways to help keep Florida’s agricultural producers profitable,” John Hoblick, president of Florida Farm Bureau Federation, said in the news release. “Giving them access to a voluntary market that will compensate them for their environmentally friendly practices is clearly a good thing and is something we are proud to be promoting.”

For links to both the full report and to an 8-page executive summary, click here. To read the EDF press release, click here.

--Craig Pittman

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

Weeding out a potential biofuels problem?

Growers of plants for use as biofuels are looking for certain qualities in their crops: hardiness, a paucity of pests and diseases and the ability to outcompete other plants.

Unfortunately, according to a new report from the Invasive Species Council released at a global warming conference in Sydney, Australia, those are also hallmarks of invasive weeds, which government and farmers are trying to eradicate.

"It turns out that many potential biofuel species pose a weed risk," the council reported. "Some of the world’s worst weeds may be biofuel prospects for Australia—giant reed and spartina appear in the World Conservation Union’s list of 100 of the World’s Worst Invaders, and Chinese tallow tree is rated as one of the the 12 worst invasive pests in the United States."

"Australia should not try to solve one environmental problem by creating another," warned ISC spokesman and report author, Tim Low. "These plants have no proven value as biofuel crops but bad reputations as weeds."

In February St. Petersburg Times reporter Kris Hundley wrote about a Florida company that wants to grow the giant reed, also known as arundo, for use as a biofuel, despite objections from environmental groups and even from the chairwoman of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, University of Florida assistant professor Alison Fox. "Florida should not accept the risk posed by large acreage plantings of this species," Fox said. "The evidence is piling up that this is not a great idea.

To see the council's press release and find a link to the report itself, click here.

And to read the St. Petersburg Times story about arundo click here.

--Craig Pittman

The potential of biomass waste: organic humus and electricity

A report in today's St Petersburg Times describes how a Florida company, Mother's Organics Humus Farm, is planning to turn yard waste into organic humus to sell to local farmers. The company's founders are renewable energy enthusiasts who believe the nation's current energy crisis is here to stay - unlike the 1970s.

They are surely onto something - perhaps one of the least well understood and developed concepts in the emerging field of renewable energy: the enormous potential of biomass waste.

If you click on the biomass category on the left hand side of this screen you will more information about other projects in this field, including a number of waste-to-energy endeavors, seeking to turn biomass into electricity. Biomass Gas & Electric Co., an Atlanta-based alternative energy producer, is partnering with Progress Energy Florida to build one of the state's first, and possibly the largest, power plant that will convert wood waste into electricity.

Early on when we started this blog we featured Dr Jose Sifontes, a biomass to energy pioneer in Gainesville who turns the city's municipal waste into a clean-burning gas. He and others are exploring ways of capturing landfill gases to drive turbines to produce electricity. Florida horse manure is another source of potential energy. Dr Ann Wilkie at the University of Florida is one of the leading researchers in the field of anaerobic digestion for waste treatment. Her current program focuses on biogas generation from bioethanol and biodiesel by-products. As she likes to say; "Fossil fuel is fossil thinking."

 NASA is also funding research at the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in Cocoa to make hydrogen gas for the space shuttle from local landfill gas.

Click here to read today's story in the St Pete Times.

Click here to visit our biomass page.

- David Adams

Europe and biogas

Someone sent me this interesting article from Reuters on biogas use in Europe.

Click here for the full article.

Here are the highlights:

* Germany leads the world with around 70 percent of the global market and produced 1,100 megawatts of electricity from biogas last year, enough to supply over a million homes.

* Britain, which wants to raise its share of renewable energy, only produced around one-25th of this.

* Biogas prevents methane created by decaying organic matter from entering the atmosphere in its pure form, and is renewable. It is generated in two main ways: by putting organic waste in sealed containers, or by capturing gas emitted by landfill waste dumps.

* Almost all Britain's biogas comes from landfills, and is often converted into electricity.

* Landfill gas makes up a quarter of British renewable energy, giving electricity to some 900,000 households.

* Britain only recycles around 15 percent of its household waste. That's far less than most European countries like top recycler the Netherlands at around 60 percent.

* The European Union set a target of increasing renewable energies to 20 percent by 2020 in last year's Energy Review. It now stands at 2 percent in Britain, the country's Renewable Energy Association (REA) says. The EU as a whole sources 6.5 percent of its energy from renewables, with Latvia the highest at 47 percent, the EU says.

- David Adams