Boca Raton based citrus energy firm begins

Hasner bill provides seed money

By John Johnston
Managing Editor

“These funds will help to further Florida’s renewable energy industry and help to promote a stronger economy and cleaner environment for the future,” House Majority Leader Rep. Adam Hasner (R-Delray Beach) told The Boca Raton News in February.

“These funds” resulted in Citrus Energy (CE) LLC (then based in Clewiston, and now based in Boca Raton) becoming one of eight initial grant recipients from the state’s Renewable Energies Technology Program. CE received $2.5 million as seed money to build a four-million-gallon-per-year ethanol bio-refinery that will use citrus waste to produce ethanol.

Five months later, Citrus and a subsidiary of FPL Group, FPL Energy, LLC, have in turn signed an agreement to develop the first ever commercial scale citrus peel to ethanol plant.

Groundbreaking

“We’re excited,” Citrus Energy President Dave Stewart told The Boca Raton News. “It’s a small start to replacing foreign oil.”

The cellulosic ethanol plant will be owned and operated by FPL Energy and is expected to produce four million gallons of ethanol per year -- about one percent of Florida’s annual gasoline consumption.
The plan is to build it in Hendry County, an agricultural region just south of Lake Okeechobee, and located on the grounds of a local citrus processor.

“We’ll break ground this year,” Stewart said.

Hasner told The Boca Raton News he was pleased to see the real-world results of the legislation he sponsored in 2006.

“This is an innovative partnership,” Hasner said. “It’s a demonstration that the state is serious about our energy future and making us less dependant on foreign sources of oil.”

“The whole concept of those grants (in February) was to do exactly this. ‘Bio-fuels are crucial to our state’s future,” said Hasner.

“Ideal Partner”

"FPL Energy is delighted to be working with Citrus Energy on this exciting new project to produce a clean, affordable, and domestically-produced biofuel,” said Mike O’Sullivan, FPL Energy’s senior vice president of development. O’Sullivan said the new plant would “utilize Florida’s existing citrus industry infrastructure, bringing new jobs to rural communities.”

“Citrus Energy’s mission is to develop fuel ethanol that minimizes environmental impact and cost by using citrus waste and other biomass. FPL Energy, as the largest renewable energy generator in the U.S., is the ideal partner,” added Stewart.

Patent Issues

The future didn’t always looks so bright for Stewart. A few years ago he faced an arbitrator’s ruling in a dispute with a Delray Beach firm over technology found in some patent applications.

Renewable Spirits LLC of Delray Beach argued that former Renewable employee Stewart was intending to use technology from its patent applications, as well as trade secrets and other information he gained during while employed by Renewable.

An arbitrator subsequently ruled that Renewable Spirits did not identify trade secrets outside the patent and could not stop Stewart from pursuing use of the ethanol technology.

In the larger picture, critics warn that bio-fuel production is energy and water intensive and that the nation's farms could never supply enough produce to meet current fuel demands. The recent interest in corn-to-ethanol production also has created concern about increasing food costs.

Which is why, according to Hasner, that Florida is among those looking beyond corn for the supplying of bio-fuel needs -- focusing instead on cellulosic ethanol such as citrus pulp and yard waste that is more efficient to produce than corn ethanol.

Stewart said he expected that full-scale citrus to ethanol production would begin “in two years.”

John Johnston can be reached at 561-549-0833, or at jjohnston@bocanews.com