A high-tech facility in southwestern Indian River County recently started generating electricity from yard waste and other non-food vegetation. Early in 2013, it will begin selling ethanol for motor vehicles. In America’s search for clean, renewable energy, this is a very big deal. It was even written up in The New York Times. The facility is called the INEOS New Planet Bio-Energy Center. It’s a joint venture of INEOS – that’s I-N-E-O-S for international ethylene-oxide sales, a chemical giant based in Europe – and New Planet Energy of California. The $130 million project is the first of its size to be registered by the U.S. government and has received a $50 million federal grant. It is located near Oslo Road and Southwest 74th Avenue, next to the county landfill – which will be one source of vegetative waste. The electricity is a byproduct of making ethanol. Eventually the Bio-Energy Center is projected to produce 8 million gallons of ethanol each year and enough electricity to power the center and also 14-hundred Indian River County homes. And to think that on this site, Ocean Spray once produced grapefruit juice. For 88.9 FM, this is Paul Janensch.
Energy from yard waste and such
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