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Cradle of innovation

Although it’s starting late, Florida has minds and the raw materials to become a leader in alternative energy research.

By DAVID ADAMS
Published September 9, 2006

POMPANO BEACH — Now in his late 80s, life appears to have come full circle for Robert Aronsson.

Almost 40 years ago Aronsson thought he was on the verge of helping revolutionize the auto industry. His plug-in electric car, Mars II, was being tested by General Motors.

It came to nothing as American car manufacturers opted to stick with the trusted combustion engine.
Now, white-haired but spry, Aronsson is hoping for a second chance.

His company, Apollo Energy Systems, is one of a number of innovative Florida businesses poised to capitalize on the nation’s sudden new interest in alternative energy.

As gas prices have soared at the pumps over the past year, Florida has lagged behind the rest of the country in the quest for cheap alternative fuels.

Thanks to entrepreneurs like Aronsson, that may be changing.

As the St. Petersburg Times found out during a weeklong tour of the state, Florida has a growing number of renewable energy companies, from the production of fuel cell batteries, to landfill gas, biofuels and wind and wave energy.

Universities and new research institutes are also helping explore the potential for new technologies.

Some companies are new to the energy industry, taking their first uncertain steps in a brave new world of fuel-efficient cars, and other energy saving devices. Others have been at it for years, decades even, struggling to emerge from the shadow of a petroleum economy.

Aronsson drives a Silver Volt, the futuristic electric car he created with a top GM designer in the late 1970s. It was featured in the movie Agent Cody Banks, and only 14 were built.

Another of Aronsson’s electric models, the Transformer One, was a hit with celebrities, including actors Gregory Peck and Lloyd Bridges and violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

“There’s a time for everything, and 1967 just wasn’t the right time,” he said. “But now it’s different.”
Despite corporate indifference, Aronsson continued to develop his own lead cobalt battery. In 1997 he teamed up with one of the pioneers of hydrogen fuel cell technology, Karl Kordesch, an Austrian engineer also in his 80s, who worked on the electric car in the 1960s.

Apollo Energy recently signed a contract to manufacture fuel cell batteries for a Jacksonville elevator company. A California company, Zap, has contracted Aronsson to fit his batteries in a new Brazilian-made electric mini car, the “Obvio,” which is in development.

Less than an hour north on Interstate 95 in Jupiter, Mark Emalfarb, founder and chief executive of Dyadic International, has teamed up with the prestigious Scripps Research Institute to explore the energy producing potential of a Russian fungus.

Emalfarb discovered the gene business through blue jeans. He began by selling pumice stones to U.S. textile companies to create the stone-washed effect in jeans. When he was pushed out of the business by new enzyme technology he fought back.

Working with scientists in Russia in the early 1980s, Dyadic began to produce its own enzymes. It is now a public company with clients in 50 countries.

In its next move the company hopes to use its patented C1 fungus to develop molecularly altered enzymes for use in biofuel production and to create drugs.

Emalfarb thinks C1 could provide commercially viable ways to produce ethanol from any cellulosic or plant matter — from switchgrass to wood pulp to municipal waste —  rather than the limited food crops available today.

“Proteins are the building blocks of life and we can harness them to make energy,” Emalfarb said. “The whole world is going to go to bio-based products and we are going to be the razor blades of this industry.”

Another company, Celunol  is working with microbiologist Lonnie Ingram at the University of Florida, who patented a process for cellulosic ethanol using the E. coli bacteria. Celunol has the backing of major investors, including Vinod Khosla, one of the country’s top venture capitalists.

Several small business ventures have received help from the Technological Research and Development Authority in Titusville, a state-run effort to promote home-grown high tech ideas.

Besides assisting in research grant funding, TRDA operates a program sponsored by NASA to provide “business incubators” where companies can get cheap office space and up to 40 hours of free technical help from scientists at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

As hydrocarbons yield to carbohydrates, new energy infrastructure is beginning to take shape. The state’s first ethanol plant is breaking ground in Tampa this month, producing corn-based fuel. The state’s first ethanol gas pump is scheduled to open in Tallahassee Tuesday offering E85 (85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline).

Renewable Energy Systems in Pinellas Park hopes to open  the state’s first biodiesel retail outlet in November.
Several state and county government fleets, as well as Florida’s military bases and NASA, are using ethanol and biodiesel.

Florida is well-placed to cash in on increased federal funding for alternative energy, says Jerry Paul, a former state representative from Sarasota turned energy consultant.

“These are farmers who own land and have bio-feedstock,” he said. “We need to help them convert to fuels using existing technologies while we work on a parallel track on some of these new technologies. Florida can do both.”
While much has been achieved in a short space of time, Florida has some catching up to do.

“Florida must provide the right business climate and economic conditions in order to transform our economy from its dependence on oil to one based on derived sugars,” said state Rep. Adam Hasner of Orlando, speaking last week at a Farms to Fuel summit organized by the Florida Department of Agriculture.

“We may not be able to control the price of gas but we can develop the right incentives to reduce the need for it. Florida has the potential to become a major producer of alternative fuels. What we need to do is unleash the collective power of emerging technologies and our state’s dominant agriculture industry.”

A lot depends on unpredictable oil prices.

“Is this going to be here today, and gone tomorrow?” said James Culp, energy programs manager at the TRDA. “I hope that gas doesn’t make everyone fickle,” he added. “We still need a diversified energy portfolio in this country just to mitigate our risk.”

David Adams can be reached at dadams@sptimes.com

To read more about alternative fuels, go to blogs.tampabay.com/energy/

[Last modified September 9, 2006, 20:39:05]