Jun. 10--Palm Beach County has been jettisoned as the site of a University of Florida ethanol plant.

In the works for two years, the proposed $20 million research and demonstration plant was slated to be built next to Florida Crystals Corp.'s Okeelanta mill and refinery near South Bay.

But University of Florida officials said Wednesday that revamped plans now call for building a smaller plant closer to Gainesville, where it will benefit from proximity to UF's faculty and staff.

With Verenium Corp., BP and Lykes Brothers proceeding with plans to build a 36 million-gallon-a-year commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in Highlands County that will use similar technology, the idea of a demonstration plant became obsolete.

"The process moved faster than the project," Florida Crystals' spokesman Gaston Cantens said Wednesday. "That combined with the fact that the $20 million was not going to be sufficient to build the project we had anticipated and no other funds were available led to this change."

In 2007, the state legislature awarded $20 million to UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences to establish a research plant to commercialize UF Professor Lonnie Ingram's patented technology for producing ethanol from the woody parts of plants. The "next-generation" biorefinery will produce ethanol and plastics from agricultural residues and woody materials, said Joe Joyce, UF executive associate vice president for agriculture and natural resources.

Also in 2007, a UF panel chose the southwestern Palm Beach County location from among six contenders. Florida Crystals had agreed to provide the land and utilities for the plant. Buckeye Florida LP, which operates a pulp mill in Perry, will be getting the plant instead, said Ingram, director at UF's Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels.

Florida Crystals will remain a member of the technical advisory committee helping to evaluate the commercial viability of the processes and various feedstocks used to make the alternative fuel, Cantens said.

"We continue to have an enormous interest in renewable energy and biofuels, and we will continue to work with the University of Florida as well as technology companies," he said.

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