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Highlands Today

Get Facts On Sorghum Ethanol Before Criticizing

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Bradley Krohn

Published: June 4, 2008

U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC is developing Highlands County's first ethanol production plant using sweet sorghum as its primary feedstock. I was very disappointed in the May 29 letter to the editor by Charles Kendall in which Mr. Kendall claimed that our ethanol facility would be a major drain on the local water supply, and that it would require four to five gallons of water to produce each gallon of ethanol.

The letter went on to imply that our ethanol plant would have a stench from decomposing products and pollution. If only Mr. Kendall would have called our offices first, he would have learned that our ethanol plant will be a net water producer, which will produce approximately 150 million gallons per year of high quality water for beneficial uses, including crop irrigation.

The plant will also be a zero-waste discharge facility and an ultra-low odor facility that minimizes air emissions. He would have also learned that our ethanol process is sugar-based and not corn-based, meaning it is unfair to compare our process to biased Internet information based upon older corn-to-ethanol plants built in the '80s and early '90s.

Mr. Kendall gave the impression that commercial crop production of sweet sorghum will contribute heavily to Highlands County water rationing. Sweet sorghum is a crop that is drought tolerant and requires significantly lower water and fertilizer inputs than sugar cane or field corn. A recent study published by the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Services states, "Compared to many other crops, sweet sorghum has high water and nutrient use efficiencies and is considered environmentally sustainable."

Local production of sweet sorghum will help preserve agricultural crop land and keep local farmers in business. New residential and commercial encroachment throughout Florida poses potentially a far greater demand and threat on ground water supplies than production of bio-energy crops on farming lands in which consumptive water use permits are already in place. Finally, the Tampa ethanol plant Mr. Kendall refers to would utilize 100 percent reclaim water from the city of Tampa, which currently dumps 50-100 million gallons of reclaimed water into Tampa Bay each day.

In 2008, the U.S. will produce 9 billion gallons of ethanol, which will extend the motor fuel supply. This year 60 percent of our nation's gasoline will contain up to 10 percent ethanol. Based on current national rack prices, the net price of ethanol is between $1.15 and $1.30 a gallon less than unleaded gasoline, which equals a savings to American motorists of $35 million a day.

Several recent economic studies have shown that without ethanol, gas prices would be significantly higher. Ethanol, while a clean-burning alternative, can never alone replace the U.S. gasoline supply. However, according to a recent Department of Energy study, ethanol is displacing imported oil and helping to cut oil imports for the first time since 1977.

We agree it is not the silver bullet to our energy crisis, and that resolving the energy battle will require a diverse portfolio of solutions, of which ethanol is one part of the puzzle.

Bradley Krohn is president of U.S. EnviroFuels LLC in Riverview.

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