Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson believes that Florida can be a leader in the production of cellulosic ethanol.

“Because of the amount of sunshine, water and year-round growth that we have for cellulose potential, I think Florida can lead the nation in this process,” Bronson said during the Cellulosic Ethanol Summit on Tuesday. Bronson was the keynote speaker at the event and he talked about a few of the crops Florida can grow for energy. “Energy cane is going to be one, sweet sorghum is going to be another,” Bronson said. “I really envision this as a second and third crop on pieces of ground that only one crop a year is being grown.”

As a cattle rancher by background, Bronson says he disagrees with some of his friends in the cattle industry. “They think that corn production is all being used up in the fuel, but it’s not,” Bronson said. “We’re producing more corn today than ever before in the United States so there is still plenty of corn left for humans and animals.”

Bronson stressed the need to keep moving toward renewable, alternative energy fuels and not become complacent now that gas prices have dropped. “We cannot allow for the development of new alternative energy to fall down, we have to keep it going,” he said.

You can listen to my interview with Commissioner Bronson here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/rfa/cell-summit-08-bronson.mp3]