Year in News: No. 4

The proposed Northwest Florida Renewable Energy Center (NWFREC) arrived in Port St. Joe in mid-year, bringing with it some of the baggage from a similar facility proposed in Tallahassee.

Critics of that proposed plant, which primarily noted location and air pollution concerns, came out in force early on but the public dissent had largely fizzled by the second of two workshops held by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection concerning permitting of the plant.

The facility would be built near the old Material Transfer Industries site, acreage that had been a coal distribution transfer point along the Intracoastal Canal.

Construction would bring more than 200 jobs to the area and after 18 months of building the plant would employ 25-30 permanently.

There remain those who are skeptical that the woody biomass needed to provide the fuel to produce electricity Progress Energy has contracted to purchase will be found in sufficient sustainable abundance to power the plant and critics remain about the potential for air pollution.

But the state and federal governments are firmly behind renewable energy sources, Gov. Charlie Crist calling for Florida to reduce fossil fuel use by 20 percent in the next 10 years, and the funding for the $160 million project appears within reach.

The FDEP will likely notice a final permit for stormwater management and air quality in the first quarter of the new year and the plant could be on line as soon as mid-2011.