Energy Freedom Comes to Vero Beach

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...In Vero Beach, Florida, they’ll be celebrating Tax Freedom Day, but also Energy Freedom Day. As of April 15th, the 8 million gallon INEOS Bio cellulosic ethanol plant is expected to be mechanically complete.

Now, eight million gallons may not sound like a lot to macroeconomists on Capitol Hill, but Vero Beach only consumes around 6.8 million gallons of gasoline per year.

...The sleepy resort and agricultural town will become something that no city in Florida has ever been before – a net exporter of transportation fuels. A little Saudi Arabia along the central Florida coast.

In the past, Vero Beach did what every other town in Florida did: shell out money for gasoline, $20 million a year or so. Those petrodollars might have gone to Canada, Mexico, the Gulf States, the Middle East or Venezuela, but they sure didn’t go to the Seacoast National Bank, creating economic opportunity for Vero residents through local lending.

... No pipeline needed, no shale-oil devastation zones to consider. No nefarious regime to have to buy oil from. No financing of Chavez, Al-Queda. No crazy. You get it from the Waste Management trucks, saving them a couple of extra blocks of driving over to the landfill.

In fact, there’s the avoided cost of the landfill to consider, and generally cellulosic ethanol firms (those using garbage) will, for some time to come, capture tipping fees for handling waste, the same way that landfills do. Only, no methane release, no crinkling of the nose from the odor of rotting biomass, no passing of the county tax hat when its time to build a new landfill. READ MORE