Spain's Cars to be Juiced Up with Citrus Biofuel--Florida's, Too

A major orange-growing area of Valencia, Spain, on the country's east coast,  is looking to convert citrus waste into biofuel. As reported in The Guardian,  producers in the region are building a major juice plant that will produce 500,000 tons of citric waste a year.

Using technology apparently being developed in Florida, the waste--from pulp but also from whole fruit deemed unprofitable to harvest--will produce 37.5 m liters of bioethanol.

According to the article:   " Local officials claim they could reduce the region's dependency on petrol by up to 40% while creating 2,500 jobs and revitalising a sector that pays for the upkeep of 100,000 families.

Spain, with the rest of the European Union, has a goal of replacing almost 6% of transport fuel with bioethanol or oilseed-based biodiesel by 2010 as part of its efforts to halt global warming."

Googling around for info on Florida biofuel technology I discovered a company called CitrusEnergy LLC that states on its website:   "Florida has 100 million citrus trees on 700,000 acres yielding 5 million tons of citrus waste."  It goes on to say that Florida should focus meeting its energy needs by using locally available biomass.   Company chief Dave Stewart told me they had just received a $2.5 million grant from the state of Florida. This will aid them immensely in attracting other funding for building Citrus Energy's first conversion plant in the Lake Ochechobee area. Stewart said construction would begin in October of this year and he expects the plant to be up and running the following October.

He added that the ethanol supply had nowhere to go but up. Producers generate only about 5 billion gallons right now while vehicles in the US slurp up over 140 million gallons of gasoline per year.

Another firm that is thinking locally is Xethanol. In December it announced plans to build a  pilot plant for the production of ethanol from citrus in Bartow, Florida.

Both these companies seem to say that basing the majority of U.S. ethanol production on corn, a product grown in the middle of the country that must be expensively trucked elsewhere, makes no sense. Each state or locale must look close to home for  "biostocks" that can be economically converted into ethanol for area use.

Eating locally and producing biofuel locally seem to go hand in hand!

( Incidentally, I think the term "liquid fuel alternative" is probably more accurate when describing a product derived from citrus waste. Ethanol has typically been described as grain alcohol.  Correct me if I'm wrong, people.)

Comments

[almost vegetarian]

Converting citrus waste into biofuel - what a marvelous idea. Not only should it be good for the planet (dependant on the manufacturing process, of course), but users will stop smelling like rancid french fries and start smelling like (we hope) sweet oranges. Aromatherapy in a tank!

[foodie]

Speaking of such, see post for today...