A four-year-old biomass energy firm, backed in part by contractor investment, is succeeding where dozens of others have failed—in building one of the largest U.S. biomass plants that will turn waste wood into energy. While the $500-million project has had to deal with the low cost of competitive energy sources and a skeptical public, the accessibility of usable "fuel" in one of the country's most densely forested regions and the project's successful link with a local utility have allowed it to proceed where similar ventures have stalled.
The project's developer, Boston-based American Renewables, is prevailing against a weak economy, low natural gas prices and some local opposition as it builds the Gainesville, Fla., facility in a region touted by energy analysts as the "Saudi Arabia of wood." Despite the resource bounty, most of the dozens of past attempts to transform it into renewable energy have failed because proposals were not competitive enough to ink a power purchase agreement with a utility.