Really interesting story here by Piedmont Biofuels about their journey in the world of making biodiesel. Link here.
Going Global?
The bioidesel business is simple.
When feedstocks are traded in the “teens per pound” range, those of
us who make biodiesel look like geniuses. As prices edge into the
twenties, we look less interesting. And when feedstock cost exceeds
thirty cents a pound we look like fools.
When we fired up our Industrial facility, virgin soybean oil was in
the teens. Soybean oil is easy to work with, it is processed locally in
Raleigh and Fayetteville, and North Carolina has over a million acres
of soybeans under cultivation.
If we forgot about our aversion to genetically modified organisms,
or about the effect of monocrops on the environment-and if we looked
the other way whenever we see the massive petroleum subsidy which is
embedded into conventional agriculture, local soy oil looked pretty
good.
It is the soy industry, after all, which invented the biodiesel
industry in this country. As a land without an oilseed industry of our
own, soy will have to do. We’ve been hard on soy, and we’ve used it to
make biodiesel, which we have shipped into our local market.
The odd tanker load would head for Staten Island, or Charlotte, or up to our friends in Asheville, and we did slip a couple of loads off to Korea, but we rested easy with our vision of making local fuel from local resources to help power our community.
But as soybean oil left the twenties and headed into the thirty five
cent a pound range, we had to part ways with soy. We waved goodbye as
soy left town as a viable biodiesel feestock.
At which point we switched to chicken fat. That is easier said than
done. The reality is that we re-plumbed portions of the plant,
struggled with declining yields, re-tooled our recipe, made
modifications in the lab, and figured it out. We are technically proud
of that claim.
Chicken fat is abundant in the Piedmont of North Carolina, it was
thirteen cents a pound, and we got it to work as a viable biodiesel
feedstock.
If we forget about our contempt for meat as a converter of energy,
or our distaste for the way conventional chicken meat is produced-from
the bird to the worker to the consumer, local chicken looks pretty
good. Not to eat-but to transesterify.
Our logic was: Better to make local fuel from local feedstocks than to close the plant down due to the high cost of soy.
But when waste chicken fat started bumping around in the high twenties, we went looking for another alternative feedstock.
We began the switch to waste vegetable oil. We have always made fuel
out of waste vegetable oil. But not in Industrial quantities. When we
ran afoul of the vegans for using chicken fat, we directed them to the
Coop where fuel has always been waste vegetable oil derived.
Waste vegetable oil is still in the teens. And it is easy to love.
We do need to forget about its effect on human health, and that
industrial quantities of waste vegetable oil tends to come from far
away.
While we were waving goodbye to chicken, we began re-tooling our
operation over to waste vegetable oil. That’s not trivial. New tanks, a
new heat source, a new recipe, new processes to put in place-but all in
the realm of the possible.
We started buying loads in Virginia, and D.C., and struck up
relationships with waste vegetable oil sources up and down the eastern
seaboard.
Our logic was: Better to make local fuel from far away feedstocks than to shutter the plant due to the high cost of chicken.
And just as we were in the midst of creating our waste vegetable oil
procurement and processing strategy, Europe knocked on the door,
wanting to buy every drop of chicken derived biodiesel we could turn
out.
Suddenly we were introduced to “tolled manufacturing,” in which the
customer owns all of the liquids in the plant, and we merely make the
fuel on a “cost plus” basis. We were offered a deal in which if we want
to buy biodiesel from our plant, we get to buy it from the customer.
This was a stunner. While it was long way away from what we set out
to accomplish, it appeared to offer us financial stability, and isolate
us from the fickle feedstock markets. The same ones which have been
inviting us into the thirties and buffeting us about.
To ship biodiesel to Europe is a different game. We had to jump over
some bars which were put before us. The first was fuel quality. 5 full
slate assays-more than we usually get in a year. The second was
terminal operations, needing to turn a tanker in a set amount of time.
The third was lab. Our lab was centered on ASTM specifications, and we
needed to convert to EN methods and specs. Now we can do both.
And finally, there was a site inspection, which we tend to pass in
our sleep. That is, if we can get wet absorbent swept up while everyone
is asleep.
And after clearing every bar, we started shipping full time to Europe.
Our logic was: Better to make fuel from local feedstocks and ship to far away markets than to hand the keys to the bank.
We hired two new fuel makers, got noticed by our local Economic Development
folks, and have been running around the clock making product for
Europe. Students of the global economy will give a nod and a wink to a
faltering U.S. dollar. People shopping in euros today can handle higher
priced feedstocks.
Although we have long been proponents of our local economy, we never
set out to help America right its balance of trade. Occasionally we
mention the U.S. flag, but we don’t tend to wrap ourselves in it.
Perhaps we are part of “America’s manufacturing comeback.”
And shipping to Europe is not what any of us set out to do.
Not wanting to lose our toehold on biodiesel derived from waste
vegetable oil, we have re-tooled a biodiesel plant in the next county
over. We’ve diverted feedstocks that way, and we hope to have on-spec
fuel coming off the line this weekend.
Our logic was: Better to keep making local fuel for the local market than to abandon our dreams entirely.
Right now we are in the midst of building our bio-refinery, so that
we can enter the glycerin markets in earnest. When that is finished, we
will build a waste vegetable oil plant onsite. And in the meantime, we
will continue to work with other small scale producers who want us to
“toll” their plants.
And we will continue our quest for a viable way to power our community with locally made fuel from local feedstocks…