Florida Funds Sorghum/Ethanol Research
Renergie, Inc. is a recipient of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Renewable Energy Technologies Grants Program. It received $1.5 million in grants to design and build Florida’s first sweet sorghum juice mechanical harvesting system and ethanol plant capable of producing fuel-grade ethanol solely from sweet sorghum juice. Renergie intends to replicate its Louisiana decentralized network of ethanol plants in Florida.
Renergie produces ethanol solely from sweet sorghum juice. This crop has received growing interest from the bioenergy community because it outperforms most alternative, first generation energy crops. According to Renergie, the main advantages of producing ethanol from sweet sorghum are: high yield (between 500 to 800 gallons of ethanol per acre), water efficiency (requires one-half of the water required to grow corn and one third of the water required to grow sugarcane), and ability to grow in marginal soil (sorghum can grow in soils ranging from heavy clay to light sand).
According to EPA figures, sweet sorghum requires the use of only 40 to 60 pounds of nitrogen per acre whereas corn growers use more than 150 pounds per acre. Less fertilizer reduces the risk of water contamination. Sweet sorghum takes only 4 months to reach maturity, which is short enough to allow harvesting twice a year while sugarcane requires 14 months to reach maturity. The energy requirement for converting sweet sorghum juice into ethanol is less than half of that required to convert corn into ethanol. This is due to the fact that the sugars in sweet sorghum juice are fermented directly. There is no need to excessively heat the juice to breakdown starch into sugars as required for corn.
Currently, only 1,347, of the nearly 180,000 retail gasoline stations in the United States offer E85. Moreover, ethanol is slowly moving from being just a blending component in gasoline to a truer fuel alternative in the form of E85. Once state approval is received, Renergie’s variable blending pumps will be able to offer the consumer a choice of E10, E20, E30 and E85.
Farmers in Louisiana and Florida will share in the profits realized from the sale of the ethanol made from their crops. Renergie enters into long-term feedstock supply contracts with area farmers. The company ensures that there is a link between the compensation paid to its feedstock producers and ethanol market conditions. Farmers will receive a lease payment for their acreage and a royalty payment based on a percentage of Renergie’s gross sales of ethanol. The Renergie ethanol project will mark the first time that Louisiana and Florida farmers will share in the profits realized from the sale of value-added products made from their crops. (Biopact, 3/10/08).
