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Ethanol Test Facility is Considered

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: October 9, 2007

DADE CITY, Fla. - DADE CITY, Fla. - Pasco County is searching for money to pay for a test of another form of resource recovery.

Pasco, which has been burning garbage to produce energy for two decades, could get into a related venture, converting biomass into ethanol.

An ethanol facility would be a "natural fit" alongside the county's resource-recovery plant in the Shady Hills area, Commissioner Jack Mariano reported today. Mariano is the chairman of an exploratory committee studying the county's ethanol production the options.

Yard wastes collected by trash haulers already come into the Pasco County Resource Recovery Facility on Hays Road anyway, Mariano observed. Instead of burning the yard wastes in the incinerator's boilers, some of the biomass material could be diverted into an ethanol pilot project, he said.

Biomass is a fancy term for plant material containing cellulose, such as tree trimmings, grass clippings and fallen leaves. The biomass can be broken down into sugars that then are refined into ethyl alcohol for fuel.

"We're in a lucky position," Mariano said. The ethanol committee has now collected enough information to start shopping for federal or state grants to test ethanol production, he said.

The "cutting edge" biomass conversion technology excited Commissioner Pat Mulieri.

Commissioner Michael Cox was curious how much yard wastes would be used in the ethanol conversion process.

That's why the pilot project is needed, Bruce Kennedy, assistant county administrator for utilities services, explained.

A test of ethanol would put the fairly new technology through its paces and explore its "synergy" with the existing waste-to-electricity plant, Kennedy said.

The test also would shed light on the financial feasibility of building a full-scale conversion facility, Kennedy said.

Read more on biomass conversion in the Oct. 13 West Pasco print edition of The Suncoast News.

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