Climate Change is Real, but not in our Reality Show Presidency.

There are two approaches to climate change; both emulate the ostrich in many ways. The first approach looks at the problem and attempts to mitigate our self inflicted climate wounds by placing Band-Aids over the bloodier parts and hoping the earth does not bleed out before we either die of natural causes, or we can garner equal amounts of income from the problem and our solutions. The second approach is more radical and requires some sacrifices, this is the “get rid of it” approach where a clear and present danger has already shown us how violent the game has become. Violent storms randomly strewn across all continents, air so poisoned we cannot breathe it without masks are not symptoms you can ignore.

The little that gets done in the face of an almost overwhelming wall of money is quite heroic. But they are band aids on a hemorrhage and should be seen as just enough to salve our consciences, not effective solutions. I hear of electric cars with rechargeable batteries that are fed off the grid, a grid that is still the last bastion of coal which is still one of the clearest culprits in climate change. Hybrids proliferate, and that is a good thing because the Prius effect allows us to think that we are striking a mighty blow for clean air and dying polar bears, with a fly swatter.

I hate to point a finger, but I am pointing at other parts of the world, Europe, which spearheaded the Kyoto agreement and the Paris accords, has long been behind a systematic and incremental movement to reduce the carbon load on our planet, and yet? They themselves are the first to admit “too little and maybe too late”. The position in Brussels is simple; every gallon of gas, every drop of diesel, every toxic chemical must be scrutinized and questioned. Every calorie, every lumen, every smokestack must be explained and asked to do more with less. China is getting on that bandwagon as we speak, and a good thing too because they are still the world leader in coal consumption. Other countries are not as committed, yet!!

The solution is not drastic change but the slow replacement of existing sources by renewable energy sources, gas and diesel have perfectly adequate less polluting options and more come on line every day fueled by the allure of big bucks already contaminated by oil, coal and nuclear power.

So the next time you see Don Steinke pushing climate change, give him a hand, when that annoying do gooder from the sierra Club asks for a signature, and be gracious for it is a small effort compared to the one required to save one of the best planets in the Universe, my planet, our universe.

Methane, Cow Powered Dairies.

A Dutch Solution to an American Problem.

Like many farmers before him, Johan DeGroot had a problem. His problem was not due to climate, except indirectly, it was not due to money, except indirectly. His problems  are not due to all the weird and wonderful events that surround most of the agricultural lands in America these days, except in an indirect manner. The solutions themselves, as usual, could be found in financing, climate change, new policies, renewable energy and the willingness of people to work together for the good of the county.

Johan DeGroot’s problem is simple, he wants to expand, not in acreage but in number of cows. Like many dairy farms, and by extension any livestock farm, his acres are surrounded by communities that are becoming less and less enchanted by the effluent of farming. Johan runs the Sunshine Dairy farm, and would like to expand by implementing a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) on his land. His neighbors would also like to join the movement but they all face the same opposition because the more animals you put into the barn, the higher the nuisance value.

Johan’s neighbors started to complain, and with reason. What no one realized except this recent immigrant from Holland, was that his problem was also a gold mine from the old country. In The Netherlands, all farms have methanizers. This is due partly because of the nuisance value of large concentrations of animals around large concentrations of humans, and Holland is one of the most crowded countries on the planet. They started with banning the spreading of raw manure on the fields because of runoffs into the local streams, canals and the aquifer. That meant that the waste had to be treated and methanizers started to crop up all over the place as a system to just dry out the manure, which led to fertilizers in less noxious forms. Nevertheless, Holland is not a dry place, from almost constant rainfall to the fact that vast tracts of land are below sea level, it was almost impossible to keep the dried manure dry and in one place.

What really sparked the evolution of the methanizer was the fact that what was evaporating from the ponds and lagoons was almost pure methane gas, and that stuff is expensive to buy, to extract from the soil, and control. The farmers had an almost endless supply of the stuff, under domes and ready to be tapped. At first it was used in heating systems, but very soon the first electrical generators appeared, converted from diesel powered units, they were easily adapted to natural gas. The farms became energy independent and even faster they started to sell off the excess energy to the local utilities

Nowadays, on the bigger operations, it is not uncommon to see small CNG and LNG production units that compete in price against natural gas wells in Russia. The day President Putin shut off the gas; Holland was restricted but not shut down because they had their own supply. When Johan De Groot arrived in Indiana he was astounded that there were no methanizers in place, of course for four years he operated his father’s farm without them because Indiana is not Holland and what appeared to be wide open spaces soon became less wide open just about when he wanted to expand.

The math is simple. Each cow produces 22 tons of manure a year and a herd of more than 200 cows is ample production for self sufficiency in energy for the farm. Add ten time the number of animals and now you have a surplus in either methane, electricity or compressed gas to sell, to use or to barter.

We could provide up to 85% of the financing and more to design and create a methanizer facility using the latest technology and binding the different components into an energy production system that would add thousands of dollar, eliminate energy bills and serve as either a farm wide fuel production unit or even allow the farmer to co-op the operation between number of entities such as neighbors, the local town or even cooperation for an LNG facility to ship the result to their nearest distribution point.

The first shot has been fired and who dodges the bullet, who turns it into gold and who gets shot is up for grabs. The Federal District Court in Yakima Washington has ruled that Dairy Farms must manage their manure as if it was a hazardous waste, a danger to human health and the environment. The decision is on appeal and the war has just started, but clearly the question is not how to beat the rap, but how to profit from what will become a popular melody across the land.

In the case of Community Association for the Restoration of the Environment, Inc et al Versus Cow Palace LLC et al, the court clearly sides with the environment.  There will be the usual shucking and jiving in the upcoming trial, but the writing is on the wall and it says loud and proud, clean up your act, here are the standards.  This time we noticed the importance of nitrates in contaminating groundwater and drinking water

Our farms are, for the most part, far from innocent in the runoff destruction of the environment. It’s not just the dairies but also any place where large numbers of animals are brought together for profit. Cattle feeding stations, rendering facilities, dairies, chicken farms and pork production all act fast and loose with their manure, offal, cleaning and drinking water spreading them over fields, letting them slide off the land into the streams and rivers surrounding the farm.

Normally this would be a problem that could be solved with better management and more concerns and more cleaning water. California, the fruit and vegetable powerhouse of the country is facing its fourth year of drought. That means two things, the first is obvious, every drop is scanned, digested and bid on, from San Diego to Ukiah the word waste water is not acceptable around the family dinner table. The second result is that the natives are getting restless, from the Rio Grande which is no longer a Rio, to Sacramento River; anyone who pollutes, wastes or generally treats the stream like a dump will be in trouble.

Nowhere has the scanning of farmers been more acute than in the Golden State. Farmers, long the darlings of the environmental movement are being identified as the number one problem in water management in the country.  We use too much, and what we don’t use we pollute. Our crony-filled arrangements with water boards, politicians and financial institutions are being fine combed for the fleas and lice everyone expects to find.

Of course, as a farmer, you cannot afford the fifteen or twenty million dollars a decent clean up station will cost. But if you break down the problem you can look at the whole situation from a positive opportunity point of view. To start with, what the courts stated is that under certain conditions your manure and waste are dangerous, toxic substances. What the farmer knows is that without those products he would have a hard time growing crops.

What we all know is that farm waste is probably the most desirable commodity on the market for creating at least three large revenue streams. Before it even leaves the building, a new technology from Finland will remove the ammonia and convert it to solid nitrate fertilizers. Removing nitrates is the first step in sanitizing the waste stream because it is by itself the most lethal form of runoff poison that works its way into the ocean ruining rivers streams and lakes along the way, not to mention the air we breathe.

But the real gold is in the remaining manure. The pollutant is methane gas; it is locked into the waste, but comes out quite easily mostly just leaving it alone to certain conditions of temperature and concentrations. What you need is a methanizer, essentially a gas proof membrane over your manure pit that allows you to let the gas escape into a huge bladder, a metal dome or even a water pit.

As the gas rises it leaves behind some serious residue that can also be converted into a number of useful items from bedding to compost, dry bedding and compost of course. In the more modern units all this is done automatically which is very useful in the larger cattle and dairy operations. What it mostly leaves behind are the pollutants that are now the target of a number of lawsuits and litigation, new laws and some serious scientific and ecological studies.

First stop is the methane gas, that is nothing more or less than the natural gas you buy from the public utility to heat your barns, water and homes. If you have so much of it lying around, why not use it. Face it, it’s a huge bill you have to pay, it’s going to be almost as big as the bill you may get for trucking the wastes to a landfill by some outside company.

How can the gas best be used, luckily we are now in the glory days of renewable energy, the first thing you can do is run a turbine generator to power your whole operation. Diesel generators can be just as easily converted to gas as the major long haul trucks have done and a stationary generator has less hassles than a Mack truck sucking diesel.  A nice thing about electricity is that it is easy to share and to sell. Our advice is keep it close, the PUCs of California have some really interesting ways to make it unprofitable to tap into the grid and download your excess amperes. We visited a site that brought three farms together to share the electrical load, manure and other wastes in an interesting co-op setup where the total cost of both gas and electricity was less than $100 a month to run two medium sized dairies and a feedlot. That included habitation for three families with all the modern appliances we would expect.

Not interested in dealing in electrical power, the two next steps are called LNG and CNG, compressed natural gas and liquid natural gas are also options, LNG being the more expensive operation but has the highest resale value and it is quite transportable. Some LNG tankers are delivering our gas to China, does the word fracking ring a bell? Make no mistake; you are entering way beyond the silly world of PhotoVoltaic panels into an industrial production system of a highly valued commodity.

Cold feet? Well try what a few communities are starting to look at, city to farm cooperation. There are two kinds of methanizers, wet or dry. But there is no reason why the two cannot coexist. Your local town has huge mounds of waste that they are schlepping to landfills, those landfills are filling up rapidly and the only solution appears to be conversion.

Financing an industrial methanizer has never been easier, although you will have to look in some new places far afield. Forget the Federal and State Governments; they are a morass of conflicting programs, grants and technologies where you can spend months talking to people who have less of a clue than you do.  You may have to go as far afield as Europe for both the technology, the equipment and the funding and your accountant better have solid chops in EXIM Bank talk.

I Wanna be an Oily Boy, just Once.

There have been a number of instances when the world oil consortia have declared that  we were running out of oil. From Titusville, Pa in the early 20 th century to peak oil doomsday scenarios, the story is always the same. It’s a finite resource and at our present rate of consumption it will be gone in 1920, 1946, 1972 and more recently. Surprisingly enough it seems to be one of those self defeating prophecies.

Oil people appear to be one of those races of people that require periodic swift kicks to get reenergized to greater efforts. This is endemic across the whole industry, for example geologists go out and discover new fields, drillers discover the joys of lateral drilling putting millions of barrels within reach, frackers brew up more toxic cocktails to allow residual oil to seep upwards and offshore platforms go miles below the surface to open one more pocket of crude. We, the renewable crew, are in awe.

Yes we are in awe of the unlimited resources, the brainpower, the political clout and the ignorance that makes all those West Texas barrels come alive all over the world at the drop of a political campaign. We ask ourselves, why them, why not us?

We have nothing to be ashamed of; our scientists are hard at work as we speak. Our victories are not as spectacular as say plugging a Gulf of Mexico blowout. Our oil spills bring in salad bar operators and gallons of vinegar, we search for answers in the sewers, waste treatment facilities and manure piles instead of the sands of Iraq. Yet, we are in the same business with lower expectations and billions less in support.

As my mother used to tell me, if you don’t see what you want it’s either not there or you need to adjust your glasses and sharpen your focus. Biofuels can do both because we are nowhere close to running out of our form of energy and our technology is still very crude, although we don’t waste as much as the petroleum boys, we could still do better.

The oil industry has a simple formula, wait until it becomes economically feasible, and then bring it on come hell or high water. Sometimes it catches them with their pants down, but mostly they get away with it because examples of slowing down are plentiful and scary. Long lines at the pumps are usually enough to get any issue resolved! We operate on the same principle, making biodiesel from virgin olive oil is quite expensive, so we marched into the soy fields and took them over amid cries of food or fuel, the price of the taco will go through the roof!

I cannot count the number of times I have presented a biofuel project to a roomful of eager investors only to have someone raise that scary specter of the starving farmer as we whip his pancake off the table. That is just window dressing on the oil company’s side of the table but when you run an ethical business based on saving the world you will be held to a higher standard.  Well we should and we should never forget it.

We have looked at some incredible sources for our feedstock all in the name of not causing problems, weeds like pennycress (better known as stinkweed), tobacco, jatropha with its slightly poisonous reputation in Australia, yes, even the poppy fields of Afghanistan have been touted and that is just the vegetable side of the biodiesel equation. Imagine rendering facilities, and Fischer Tropsch conversion of manure altered methane gas, we have just begun the fight to find cheaper and less invasive ways to cut down green house gasses, stop climate change and save the cities along the waterfronts of the world.

While biofuels and renewable are fighting the good fight, conscious of our role in the energy mix, we watch in awe and envy as our petroleum counterparts bury their scruples in the sands of time, along with a goodly number of the people who stood between them and the gas pumps of the world.

As they begrudge us the use of fallow fields to grow camelina and pennycress, they are planning to bulldoze whole forests in Alberta to scoop up the tar sands and extract sludge to send down a pipeline from Canada to Texas crawling over cities, towns, water tables, rivers, farmland and backyards.  They have an enormous amount of support to do this because just the thought of running out of oil is enough to suspend belief and credibility. As responsible citizens we pay our dues, accepting that sometimes things can go wrong and a fire will destroy a facility, or our product may clog filters. As responsible citizens they too have their ups and downs, sixteen people died in the Gulf of Mexico and the oil spill is still polluting the shores of the BP inland ocean. Exxon has yet to pay for the Exxon Valdez spill and the Enbridge pipeline has a daily total of crude lost that would power the trucks and buses of a small town, and we are the ones feeling the guilt?

We need the thicker skins that fly from Saudi Arabia to Houston on a daily basis, we need the subtlety of a Vladimir Putin, the discrete charm of Bob Dudley the CEO of BP so that we can charm a new customer base and be loved as only Saddam Hussein was before the crash.

We envy those people more than we should because they are essential, they are effective and they are oh so needed. Our most visible representatives are Al Gore and Willie Nelson and aint they a pair of troopers to rally behind?

Yes, you can make ethanol out of sour grapes and biodiesel out of humble pie, but it sure would be a treat to once, just once, be able to stick it to oily boys around the world. Because if we don’t sooner rather than later they will bury us.

HOW Green Are you?

We are seeing an inordinate amount of activity around the green house gasses topic. People from all walks of life claiming to not only care, but also to want to change the very air we breathe. They are of course laudable but sadly misled because what they are doing is called the Prius effect.

The Prius effect is the simple act of buying an overpriced piece of transportation because it puts you into a more acceptable consumer category. Let's leave aside for the moment all the pecuniary reasons for buying a Prius, from subsidies at purchase to lower cost at the pump, and concentrate on what has actually happened.

In the grand scheme of things, nothing, a large gas guzzler has been replaced by a lesser gas guzzler. What is significant is that the new Prius owner is convinced that he has made a difference and will not give up all the little things he used to do, like turning lights off, using his bike etc. It is a bit like buying a rocking chair because it gives the impression of going somewhere while standing still.

If you live in rural America, there is no reason to run your farming and transportation equipment on diesel, even if it is biodiesel. There are conversion kits that would allow the use of natural gas. No, not that fracked abomination we are shipping to China, but real NATURAL gas pumped out of the dairy farm methanizer all your neighbors have installed. That NATURAL gas which comes from letting manure sit for a week in a lagoon.

The natural gas the Germans have built 6800 digesters to collect and distribute, THAT natural gas which California produces from one of the 110 digesters they reluctantly have built over the last thirty years. Not the natural gas that is being pumped out of fractured shale in the new earthquake zones of Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and California.

When was the last time you drove by a dairy farm, feedlot or slaughterhouse and gagged at the stench of accumulated manure? That smell, my friend is the golden taste of natural gas going to waste, seriously. It is the stench of nitrates being allowed into the atmosphere instead of being captured and sold as fertilizer, it is liquid gold going to waste.

So how green do you think you are? Green enough to get back on a bicycle? Greene enough to convert to biodiesel? It's a tough question.

Yes, You Must Save This Planet, It Truly Is The Only One You Have!

Building So That Tomorrow Never Happens.

In Canada, and in some parts of the United States, newly minted engineers received an iron ring to wear on their pinky of their working hand. The was, by tradition a replica made of rings made from an iron beam from a Quebec bridge construction site that collapsed killing a number of workmen. The implication was to remind engineers as they progressed in their careers to be ever careful that their works not cause harm. The McGill Law School in Montreal has a motto over the entrance "Audite Alteram Partem", simply asking their aspiring attorneys to listen to the other side and the Hippocratic oath clearly states that all doctors should "Above all cause no additional damage". Those codes of professional ethics are based on experience from life ending mistakes. As we move further into our century and see that we have and are damaging this planet in serious ways, we should remind ourselves that we, the people, need to renew those vows.

The environment we are trashing in millions of ways is the only one we have. We may not suffer the consequences of our arrogance, but our children already are. From my son who can no longer drink the pure water of the Georgian Bay to the Nigerian tribes forced out of their ancestral fishing grounds. Our concern should not be for what is expedient and simple like using Roundup every week end rather than pulling the weeds and allowing our thin stream to become a roaring torrent of poison or insisting on our right to strip mine country-sized parts of the world to allow bigger and bigger cars to transport solitary commuters on carbon choked highways. Our concerns should center on asking ourselves in every way how we can actually make a small difference. Like that roaring river of Roundup headed down our rivers, these small efforts can also become such a torrent.

We must educate ourselves about some of the real dangers that we are facing. We must educate ourselves not to defend our positions but to see if maybe the other side has a point. When in doubt abstain and the Tar Sands are an area where legitimate concerns have been expressed and legitimate solutions have been proposed. These range from advanced monitoring systems to reinforced piping, shorter runs and immediate cutoff systems at the least hint of trouble.

I have no illusions that my silly little biodiesel facilities will turn the tide, we build 10 million gallon units at a time, and we are also under constant attack for starving the world. But we try to hear the concerns and offer less damaging solutions. In my world I can offer biodiesel plants that process waste water sludge, rendered animal fats, waste vegetable oils, algae, weeds like camelina, penny cress in Alberta, tobacco plants and even, according to an extensive study that I would gladly share, the vast fields of poppy seeds in Afghanistan. We are trying to push the boundaries of what is possible beyond the simple solutions of other industries.

We have discovered that if you bubble CO2 from power plants through cooling ponds, the pond scum becomes saturated with oils that and can produce biodiesel. We have also come up against some vicious vested interests that will do anything to protect their turf. In the US the legislation on biodiesel is complex and changes on an almost daily basis. Funding is promised and then blocked. In Canada vast amounts of promised grants, loan guarantees and support disappear and money flows towards specific areas.

Yet we persevere because there is a reason why replacing 10% of the petroleum diesel with biodiesel is a good thing. It is good for the planet; it is also amazingly good for the engine because the higher lubricity keeps the engine running longer and cleaner and mitigates the evil effects of ULSD. I can hear it now,” who cares, I drive a 300HP gas guzzling Escalade”. Well, that's OK, but in Europe the vast majority of cars are diesel powered, up to 60% of the fleet in France is diesel and all the diesel pumps in France have 5% biodiesel in them. Those little animals are routinely getting 40 to 60MPG with no loss in performance. They have a rail infrastructure that allows anyone to get on a train and get off within a public transportation ride from their destination. Here we have destroyed our rail system so everything has to move by truck. The port of Oakland is the focal point for incredibly high levels of childhood asthma, the West Oakland coalition is fighting it as hard as they can and our proposal to install a biodiesel facility there is gaining traction.

Imagine clean burning port infrastructures with all the cranes, lifters, even the ships that now use bunker fuel, as toxic as the tar sands idling to keep their systems going, imagine the ferries in BC, San Francisco and LA running on 50% biodiesel mix. It becomes a possibility if we could divert some of the billions going into mega projects like the tar sands into millions into a biofuel infrastructure. But that will not happen until we realize that there are people whose sole concern is the dollar they can make.

There are places in the world where economic necessities require building and using older and more polluting technologies, I can accept that. But those places do not include Canada where their strip mining will cover an area as big as Holland, those areas do not include China, one of the richest countries in the world and still installing coal fired electricity generating facilities when they could just as easily install nuclear power plants. In areas, industries and groups where they have the technology, the resources and the will to build systems that do not poison our air, our soil and our minds and yet they persist in doing so for whatever venal reasons, those people, companies and government are committing crimes against humanity. Where a simple law would alter the course of planetary degradation, not passing that law is a dereliction of a sworn duty and should be punished.

I am ashamed to say that my country is the second worst offender in the policy of buy what you cannot legislate. In case after case, the lobbyists are destroying our way of life, our environment, our very ethics. They provide false and misleading information that no science supports, they have dumbed down our debate to the point that a Sarah Palin can run for Vice President of the largest economy in the world. They have started wars and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people for what are basically oil interests. I will add with the tacit approval of other nations like Canada, the UK and others.

Yet, behind those atrocities lie good people who, if confronted with these accusations, will honestly say that they in no way support those goals. That their peculiar industry is not responsible for a Nigerian genocide or a life altering oil spill. In many ways they are right because very seldom can you point at one person and say you did this and you should pay. To me that is the reflection of the Citizens United decision that gave corporations the right to act and be treated like people. BP has the right under numerous laws that used to apply to citizens, not to answer questions about the full extent of their depredations in court, the Koch brothers have the right to lie about their activities.

When supposedly intelligent people like Bachmann are listened to as seriously as Nobel Peace Prize, winners then you realize that there is a serious flaw in our psyche. Idiots who nitpick discussions like the Sandy Hook pundits debating whether the gun used to assassinate those children was an automatic or semi automatic completely miss the point that children should not be used as targets. The issues are no longer semantic discussions over nomenclature; the issues are the survival of the planet. We have seen species destroyed because just a few things were altered. I am not talking about the carrier pigeon here where we deliberately went out and massacred every last one of them, but sea animals, insects, large furry beasts and small rodents gone because we took away their food or raised the temperature of their habitat.

The Calaveras County gold rush is an interesting area, the mines are still there, the Thompson water cannons can still be seen, but the damage to the area is also still visible many years after the gold diggers left. The coal hills of West Virginia, the slag heaps in Wales and around Marcinelle in Belgium are also still there so many years after the first blood sucking tycoons walked away to plunder other areas.

I can imagine that many years from now our grandchildren will shake their heads and say what were they thinking? Much as I do when visiting the battlefields of WWI. Why have we deliberately systematically done exactly the opposite of what could be a life enhancing moment in the history of mankind? We have the technology, we can rebuild this planet in a way that will not ensure our ultimate destruction and yet so many Neanderthals still insist that the ways of the past are still the only ways into the future and all they can offer are idiotic statement that whatever you propose is equally damaging and our need for money and jobs supplants the need for Nigerians to breathe.

So please build that pipeline as economically as possible, we should not in any way impede the path to destruction. I suggest using plastic hoses, they are cheap and will not deteriorate over the years. According to a recent Harris poll conducted by the oil industry 83% of the US population are in favor of this. That almost exactly corresponds to the number of people who supported George Bush's attack on Iraq. Because when dealing with stupidity of such massive scale fed by millions of dollars or PR and the wonderful situation of the Athabasca River so far away from prying eyes and the reality of what is being done, you can get away with almost any crime. It is an absolutely carbon copy of the Niger Delta and Canada is no different than that corrupt and oil sodden country. Companies like Suncor, Esso/Imperial, BP and others will never stand up in court to answer for their crimes against humanity and the world just like Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rice are immune from prosecution because whole countries and erudite and educated people stood beside them when the crime was committed.

I wonder how we will answer when our children ask us, Daddy what did you do in the war against our planet?

The Keystone XL Pipeline is Overcome By Bought and Sold Engineers

In Canada, and in some parts of the United States, newly minted engineers received an iron ring to wear on the pinky of their working hand. The was, by tradition a replica made of rings made from an iron beam from a Quebec bridge construction site that collapsed killing a number of workmen. The implication was to remind engineers as they progressed in their careers to be ever careful that their works not cause harm. The McGill Law School in Montreal has a motto over the entrance "Audite Alteram Partem", simply asking their aspiring attorneys to listen to the other side and the Hippocratic oath clearly states that all doctors should "Above all cause no additional damage". Those codes of professional ethics are based on experience from life ending mistakes. As we move further into our century and see that we have and are damaging this planet in serious ways, we should remind ourselves that we, the people, need to renew those vows.

 The environment we are trashing in millions of ways is the only one we have. We may not suffer the consequences of our arrogance, but our children already are. From my son who can no longer drink the pure water of the Georgian Bay to the Nigerian tribes forced out of their ancestral fishing grounds. Our concern should not be for what is expedient and simple like using Roundup every week end rather than pulling the weeds and allowing our thin stream to become a roaring torrent of poison or insisting on our right to strip mine country-sized parts of the world to allow bigger and bigger cars to transport solitary commuters on carbon choked highways. Our concerns should center on asking ourselves in every way how we can actually make a small difference. Like that roaring river of Roundup headed down our rivers, these small efforts can also become such a torrent.

As Suncor says, we must educate ourselves about some of the real dangers that we are facing. We must educate ourselves not to defend our positions but to see if maybe the other side has a point. When in doubt abstain and the Tar Sands are an area where legitimate concerns have been expressed and legitimate solutions have been proposed. These range from advanced monitoring systems to reinforced piping, shorter runs and immediate cutoff systems at the least hint of trouble.
I have no illusions that my silly little biodiesel facilities will turn the tide, we build 10 million gallon units at a time, and we are also under constant attack for starving the world. But we try to hear the concerns and offer less damaging solutions. In my world I can offer biodiesel plants that process waste water sludge, rendered animal fats, waste vegetable oils, algae, weeds like camelina, penny cress in Alberta, tobacco plants and even, according to an extensive study that I would gladly share, the vast fields of poppy seeds in Afghanistan. We are trying to push the boundaries of what is possible beyond the simple solutions of other industries.

We have discovered that if you bubble CO2 from power plants through cooling ponds, the pond scum becomes saturated with oils that and can produce biodiesel.

We have also come up against some vicious vested interests that will do anything to protect their turf. In the US the legislation on biodiesel is complex and changes on an almost daily basis. Funding is promised and then blocked. In Canada vast amounts of promised grants, loan guarantees and support disappear and money flows towards specific areas.

 Yet we persevere because there is a reason why replacing 10% of the petroleum diesel with biodiesel is a good thing. It is good for the planet; it is also amazingly good for the engine because the higher lubricity keeps the engine running longer and cleaner and mitigates the evil effects of ULSD. I can hear it now,” who cares, I drive a 300HP gas guzzling Escalade”. Well, that's ok, but in Europe the vast majority of cars are diesel powered, up to 60% of the fleet in France is diesel and all the diesel pumps in France have 5% biodiesel in them. Those little animals are routinely getting 40 to 60MPG with no loss in performance. They have a rail infrastructure that allows anyone to get on a train and get off within a public transportation ride from their destination. Here we have destroyed our rail system so everything has to move by truck. The port of Oakland is the focal point for incredibly high levels of childhood asthma, the West Oakland coalition is fighting it as hard as they can and our proposal to install a biodiesel facility there is gaining traction.

Imagine clean burning port infrastructures with all the cranes, lifters, even the ships that now use bunker fuel, as toxic as the tar sands idling to keep their systems going, imagine the ferries in BC, San Francisco and LA running on 50% biodiesel mix. It becomes a possibility if we could divert some of the billions going into mega projects like the tar sands into millions into a biofuel infrastructure. But that will not happen until we realize that there are people whose sole concern is the dollar they can make.

There are places in the world where economic necessities require building and using older and more polluting technologies, I can accept that. But those places do not include Canada where their strip mining will cover an area as big as Holland, those areas do not include China, one of the richest countries in the world and still installing coal fired electricity generating facilities when they could just as easily install nuclear power plants. In areas, industries and groups where they have the technology, the resources and the will to build systems that do not poison our air, our soil and our minds and yet they persist in doing so for whatever venal reasons, those people, companies and government are committing crimes against humanity. Where a simple law would alter the course of planetary degradation, not passing that law is a dereliction of a sworn duty and should be punished.

I am ashamed to say that my country is the second worst offender in the policy of buy what you cannot legislate. In case after case, the lobbyists are destroying our way of life, our environment, our very ethics. They provide false and misleading information that no science supports, they have dumbed down our debate to the point that a Sarah Palin can run for Vice President of the largest economy in the world. They have started wars and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people for what are basically oil interests. I will add with the tacit approval of other nations like Canada, the UK and others.

Yet, behind those atrocities lie good people who, if confronted with these accusations, will honestly say that they in no way support those goals. That their peculiar industry is not responsible for a Nigerian genocide or a life altering oil spill. In many ways they are right because very seldom can you point at one person and say you did this and you should pay. To me that is the reflection of the Citizens United decision that gave corporations the right to act and be treated like people. BP has the right under numerous laws that used to apply to citizens, not to answer questions about the full extent of their depredations in court, the Koch brothers have the right to lie about their activities.

When supposedly intelligent people like Bachmann are listened to as seriously as Nobel Peace Prize, winners then you realize that there is a serious flaw in our psyche. Idiots who nitpick discussions like the Sandy Hook pundits debating whether the gun used to assassinate those children was an automatic or semi automatic completely miss the point that children should not be used as targets. The issues are no longer semantic discussions over nomenclature; the issues are the survival of the planet. We have seen species destroyed because just a few things were altered. I am not talking about the carrier pigeon here where we deliberately went out and massacred every last one of them, but sea animals, insects, large furry beasts and small rodents gone because we took away their food or raised the temperature of their habitat.

The Calaveras County gold rush is an interesting area, the mines are still there, the Thompson water cannons can still be seen, but the damage to the area is also still visible many years after the gold diggers left. The coal hills of West Virginia, the slag heaps in Wales and around Marcinelle in Belgium are also still there so many years after the first blood sucking tycoons walked away to plunder other areas.

I can imagine that many years from now our grandchildren will shake their heads and say what were they thinking? Much as I do when visiting the battlefields of WWI. Why have we deliberately systematically done exactly the opposite of what could be a life enhancing moment in the history of mankind? We have the technology, we can rebuild this planet in a way that will not ensure our ultimate destruction and yet so many Neanderthals still insist that the ways of the past are still the only ways into the future and all they can offer are idiotic statement that whatever you propose is equally damaging and our need for money and jobs supplants the need for Nigerians to breathe.

So please build that pipeline as economically as possible, we should not in any way impede the path to destruction. I suggest using plastic hoses, they are cheap and will not deteriorate over the years. According to a recent Harris poll conducted by the oil industry 83% of the US population are in favor of this. That almost exactly corresponds to the number of people who supported George Bush's attack on Iraq. Because when dealing with stupidity of such massive scale fed by millions of dollars or PR and the wonderful situation of the Athabasca River so far away from prying eyes and the reality of what is being done, you can get away with almost any crime. It is an absolutely carbon copy of the Niger Delta and Canada is no different than that corrupt and oil sodden country. Companies like Suncor, Esso/Imperial, BP and others will never stand up in court to answer for their crimes against humanity and the world just like Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rice are immune from prosecution because whole countries and erudite and educated people stood beside them when the crime was committed.

 I wonder how we will answer when our children ask us, Daddy what did you do in the war against our planet?

Food or Fuel?

The current argument against developing biofuels is that the world is facing a food shortage and that biofuels are contributing to that shortage. Although there is ample evidence that the cost of food grains has gone up dramatically in the last few years, there is equally compelling evidence that the increases maybe due less to biofuels than to bio management.

Recent studies undertaken by the Swedish Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)points to the absolutely staggering amounts of food that are wasted every day.  In the US alone, it is estimated that 30 percent of our food crops never reach the table. In the United States, where sophisticated transportation, preserving and delivery systems are in place, the waste number is more than $40 billion a year.

Imagine what that number is in the third world countries that are trying to cope with almost criminal costs for petroleum products, a worldwide ban on their only energy supply and massive farm subsidies for competing produce.

So food or fuel? The easy answer is that the price of food is going up in some cases quite dramatically. It is also very clear that other staples have risen just as dramatically, none more so than petroleum products.

In North America dependence on foreign oil has taken on the mantle of a crusade.  Billions of dollars are being spent lobbying to open the Alaska National wildlife refuge; even more is poured into subsidies for solar, ethanol and biodiesel.  Huge wind farms, connected to the national grid will make electric cars a staple of the future and hydrogen production and fuel cells are being touted as the next major breakthrough.

The rush is on to come up with solutions to a perceived national threat.  And every alternate and mainline fuel solution faces an army of detractors, some of them so old that they have become hoary chestnuts from a better past when we still had options that had not yet been destroyed by either grass roots campaigns or big business lobbying.  Nuclear power, as long as we know how to get rid of the waste, is an excellent example.  And yet, we are seeing renewed interest in nuclear power.  A Tennessee senator bans wind power farms being built too near his land, and wind turbines are killing birds and stampeding cattle.

It seems that the more recent the energy source, the more bizarre the attack.  But surely none are stranger than the recent campaign to eliminate the widespread distribution of biofuels, whether it is ethanol or biodiesel. The argument is that we will soon have to choose between producing energy and producing food. And in a very strange way, this argument has merit because every acre that is not producing food is obviously not a food-producing acre.

Having said that and many are saying it, let’s see how reasonable the argument really is. 

To start with, the basic premise that the world is gasping for food is only true insofar that there are pockets or areas, in the developing nations, that are unable to produce enough food locally to survive.  These areas are also too poor to be able to buy food on the open market so they periodically face massive starvation.  What is never brought up is that those same areas are energy poor.  They lack local natural supplies of the most basic energy sources including wood or coal. 

It might also be pointed out that they lack water, arable soil, a local infrastructure that would allow them the bare necessities to survive.  No roads, no power and no water to face their overwhelming poverty, the only solution appears to be an annual die off.

On the other hand, changing one element of the equation changes the whole aspect of the solution. The most obvious element has to be the ability to generate energy in one way or another.  Solar energy in very small amounts can be generated because the areas are arid and subject to harsh solar conditions.  The problem with solar is that to generate energy in the amounts needed to make a difference would entail vast construction projects and the installation of an electrical grid to distribute it. Also there are not enough photovoltaic panels available at a reasonable cost to even begin to address the problem.

So nuclear is out, hydro is a non-starter, wind could be an option but requires the same distribution grid and the list goes on.  Often overlooked is the fact that petroleum products have become increasingly expensive, distribution is erratic and supplies controlled by outside sources that may not have anyone’s best interest at heart.

There is little doubt that palm oil is both a victim and a savior in this story. From what I know, in Africa more than 50% of the palm oil plantations are now lying idle for various reasons from local political problems to lack of investors.  Once a plantation has gone stagnant for more than three years, they need to be either replanted or carefully brought back into production.  The wild palm fruit is harvestable with rudimentary manpower and basic crushing facilities can provide tons of oil and fuel for these areas.  Diesel sells for $15 a gallon in some of these countries and a small place like Liberia could be energy independent if they harvested their palm plantations.

Another sound bite, some of the outlying islands suffered from terrible fires a few years ago, not related to slash and burn farming but due to natural causes. Whole areas were turned into moonscapes, according to a friend who went in to assess the damage.  They are reforesting with, among other plants, oil palm trees in order to reestablish an ecosystem and generate some cash for the rest of the country- is this inherently evil?

The role of the multinational food corporations is almost as troubling as the role being played out by the large petroleum companies in the middle of the food chain. A really simplistic example would include the farmer in Sierra Leone who raises tomatoes and cannot afford to move his twenty pounds a week of tomatoes to the local market because of the high cost of transportation (Diesel fuel).  The multinational food companies that fill the shelves in remote areas of the world can afford those prices because they transport in bulk over vast distances in sophisticated refrigeration units. Their fuel for pound is minimal compared to the local farmer.

So now you are dealing with a complex and very delicate equation that can only be solved by making assumptions on the X, Y and Z axis. X is the high cost of transportation due to the increased fuel prices; this unknown variable shifts on a daily basis for many reasons and is entirely unpredictable except that is trends up.  Y is the untold damage we are doing to our planet because of X which actively modifies Y, and is in turn modified by a horde of other factors which some call the SUV syndrome. Then there is the Z factor, the Zany factor that dictates against both reason and logic under the guise of political, ecological and ethical stances that some food staples may not be fuel, and certain forms of energy are “unacceptable” or unethical.

Keep it simple, dimple!

I have a project in Canada that is now, after being banged around by a covey of slick finance people, going to get back to the basic premise of earning money from making and selling biodiesel. The owner intends to bootstrap his operation this way:

 

1) He has located a property that is evaluated at $12 million, he is buying it, on a down market, for $7.5 million. 

2) He will be funding it to the tune of $2 million, a down payment for which he is giving up 15% equity in his company.

3) He gets a loan for the full amount of he property, $12 million, and pays off the $7.5 million. 

4) Uses the remaining cash to purchase one of my units installed on his property, which he bought with all the buildings to house the processors.

 

Ultimately, based on his figures and my equipment, he will be running a 200,000 Ton facility with a 1600 MT a day crushing facility in less than three years based on realistic projections and picking up every legal and illegal subsidy he can grab.

 

The man is a farmer and he taught me a lot of things, the most important is to always keep it simple.  He is not concerned about feedstock because he knows that there will always be vegetable or animal oils around and our equipment will transform almost anything into biodiesel. He is not concerned about buyers because he has three offtake agreements, access to France through my connections and demand building from the USA. He is not concerned about jet fuels, jatropha, algae or palm trees because that is not his business.  He is betting the farm that he bought for an original $2 million down and he, the banks, the investors, the government and the buying public know full well that that is the rock.

 

So I would like to discuss getting back to the basic building block of your project, what is the rock bottom entry point so that I can sell you a biodiesel facility? Is it the land, then you are a rancher and a farmer, rattle those cages and find a piece of land on a jetty with a couple of Quonset huts and a rail yard, make it as big as you can, but as cheap as you can find.  Wangle a down payment, and leverage the hell out of it, why not? It's your land! Everything else can be finessed in some way.

 

You do not need to buy B1 oil for a jatropha contract, there are enough jatropa contracts and palm oil contracts and soy contracts floating around to ensure your 10 million gallons delivered to your doorstep.  Offtake agreements, pick up the phone and get General Petraeus on the line, his whole fighting force is screaming for the stuff!

 

The main reason my Canadian is getting back to basics is because he was shafted by trying to be too smart.  If he had taken the first finance package that came his way he would already have been producing for two years, and have about $17 million in pure profit after paying back all of his debts.

 

Find a guy with your seed money, help him plant it and get rid of him within a year, al the rest is baggage.

 

Yo Truck Makers, Pay Attention!

The Time to Put Biodiesel In Your Tank Is Now!

I think that a product that cuts pollution dramatically, increases truck engine’s efficiency with Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel, weans us off foreign oil in a very small way and can be made from numerous renewable sources, would be in high demand across the US.  That miracle product is biodiesel and in many ways it meets and exceeds all of those expectations. 

Also, strangely enough, it is hailed almost unanimously as a saving technology by schools, unions, truckers, farmers, environmentalists, doctors and a world class country western singer.  And yet, just as strangely, it is not being used nearly as much as all that adulation would imply for a very simple reason, engine manufacturers are ambiguous about the fuel and consequently the large trucking firms hesitate to allow the blends into their fleet.

If the majors won’t buy, the rank and file, and smaller companies hesitate to climb on board. After all, most independent truckers and small fleet owners buy their units from the larger groups, who then turn around and buy new units. Just to allay the suspense, all engine manufacturers allow biodiesel in their engines in blends of 5% or less. Anything above that is tolerated but not recommended, which is a flat shame on them because the benefits are so transparently positive.

So What Is Biodiesel?

First a quick chemistry lesson, biodiesel is not vegetable oil, it’s an actual diesel fuel made from vegetable oil and or animal fats mixed in with methanol, scientifically manipulated under strict temperature, dosage and pressure control in a process called transesterification.  At the end of the process almost all the methanol is separated out, glycerin drops to the bottom and sold and the biodiesel is pumped off. What is called biodiesel is the same color as #2 diesel, smells faintly of olive oil and will blend completely with existing petroleum diesel. It can increase NoX in the higher blends, but not to a noticeable degree, and decreasing CO2 is an added benefit.

The economics of biodiesel are tightly wrapped up in political considerations.  The Federal government will pay the blender one dollar for every gallon of biodiesel he blends into the petroleum/bio mix. Only the blender gets the dough, which is why he can then pass on that savings down the chain.  The trucker will not see a penny of that, so I won’t get into that particular rats nest except to point out that if you removed the subsidies from any form of transportation energy source, we would all be walking at this point.

Suffice it to say that biodiesel will closely follow the price of petroleum diesel and might even be more expensive at times because most biodiesel is sold as a blend of anything from 2% bio, 98% petroleum all the way to 100% bio in special applications. But the core of the biodiesel business is in the 2 to 20% range.  A quick note on nomenclature, B20 is a 20% mix of biodiesel, B5 is 5% etc.  The reason for these blending amounts is based on the supply and demand of feedstocks such as soy oil, chicken fat or other natural fats.  One acre of soy beans will produce 48 Gallons of oil. Simple math indicates that to replace the 34 billion gallons of diesel sold in America last year you would need 700 million acres of soy beans.

Engine Makers?

With all that in mind, how can we explain the attitude of the engine manufacturers towards biodiesel?  It is based partly on bitter experience with bad batches in the early part of the century, it is based on anecdotal reports of engine filters and injectors clogging up and it is based on the simple fact that not all biodiesel is created equal.

In the beginning there was very little control over biodiesel production, individuals and corporations would produce batches of biodiesel in highly individualized production facilities.  There is now a national biodiesel standard just as there is a national diesel fuel standard. As long as the biodiesel conforms to ASTM D6751 and is produced from a reliable facility with ongoing testing services, there should be no problem as far as gelling and clouding. 

There is another drawback to biodiesel due to the fact that it is a good solvent.  In older engines, the first couple of tank fill ups can lead to injector and fuel clogging simply because it is cleaning the fuel circuit, from the tank to exhaust pipe.  The accumulated dirt has to be picked up and delivered to the engine itself.   Mechanics familiar with biodiesel routinely recommend that the filters be changed in the first few weeks to ensure smooth operation.

Soon the car manufacturers will be importing diesel powered examples of their existing models.  The diesel Mini has been available in Germany for the last four years; it gets 600 miles per tank of fuel.  In Europe diesel power competes very nicely and is hardly noticed at the rack. As a matter of fact, 60% of the cars in France run on diesel fuel, and all that diesel has biodiesel in it, that’s the law and those are my lungs!  Here, a small operation in Berkeley still feels the need to “educate” the people who buy their fuel, and biodiesel still has that trendy, tree-hugging aura the industry is trying to shed.

Ecology is not a trucking industry byword.  But engine efficiency is, and running B5 (5% biodiesel) is a great way to keep those pistons pumping because the lubricity of the bio is legendary.  It dramatically cuts down on the friction within the engine. Your truck will last a lot longer and smell a lot better.

Truckers, Make Your Own Fuel!

If there is one thing more troubling to the trucking industry than the rising cost of fuel, it’s the uncertainty of where and when the prices will go up next. At the same time, there are newer considerations that have to be faced, questions about fuel efficiency, ecological considerations, and legislation coming into effect that will mandate newer, less efficient fuels like ethanol in the gas market.

The simple task of converting to ULSD did not go flawlessly as announced since numerous fleet owners noticed that the new fuel was more abrasive than anticipated. Maintenance schedules had to be tightened and fuel managers started looking to ways to protect themselves in meaningful ways.

One solution quickly came to the forefront, biodiesel, with its significantly higher lubricity, ready availability and useful ecological message, became a popular route out of the fuel mess. Then a few bad experiences under cold climates quickly turned the swan back into an ugly duckling. The problems were major because of inexperienced operators running small biodiesel batch processors produced fuel that under winter conditions turned to soap and clogged filters. It was a repeat of the horrors of the early days of ULSD which dissolved some of the rubber lines in the older trucks.

That was then and this is now. Biodiesel can be made efficiently, inexpensively and most importantly reliably in the new modern facilities. The new ASTM standards clearly set down the tests and results that the fuel must meet and the most modern technologies do not even require the use of water, the main source of contamination from soap and a major source of pollution from waste water flowing out of the process.

Even engine builders are coming around to the new reality, if Cummins allows B20 (20% biodiesel blend) in their larger engines, can the rest of the world be far behind? No truck manufacturer completely disallows the blend, but most are hedging their bets at the B5 level. Those numbers could be an endangered species as local, state and federal laws move towards more and more renewable energy legislation.

So what is biodiesel? Quite simply it is the product of a process called transesterification, a fancy word for converting a mixture of vegetable oil or animal fats and methanol into a natural form of diesel fuel and glycerin. What it is not is the pure vegetable oil that some farmers are putting into their tractors. It is a one to one replacement fuel for diesel, it can be run straight (B100) or mixed in with petroleum diesel and it carries a lot of advantages over the petroleum product.

To start with it is much more lubricating than ULSD, in concentration of just 5% engine rebuilders have noticed up to 25% less wear on engine components. In real dollar terms that translates to 25% more miles between rebuilds, which, for major trucking firms may not mean that much since they resell their units on average every three years, but for the independent trucker buying these trucks means money in the bank.. Using biodiesel on a regular basis also significantly reduces all forms of pollution. It is made from natural substances containing no carbon, so CO emissions are reduced. Another advantage is political, it reduces our dependence on foreign oil sources and hands jobs back to the farmers of America.

When Willie Nelson sings On the Road Again, he means in a biodiesel powered truck.

So why is it not more available?

Actually there are pockets of biodiesel all over North America with some states more aggressive than others in promoting its use. But one solution that is already used in Germany is for trucking companies with large regional fleets and even cross-country haulers, to make their own in 3 to 5 million gallon plants strategically located near main shipping and hauling routes.

This is not a light decision, a 5 million gallon a year turnkey facility, will set your company back about $6 million if you need to build it from scratch. The processor itself is around $2 million. A complete facility will require fueling racks, storage tanks for the biodiesel, feedstock and catalyst. But the processes are now fully automated, can be handled by one or two employees, will include a comprehensive lab to ensure that the fuel meets ASTM specs and will allow the owner to set his own production schedule based on demand, price of feedstock and blending demands. Of course if you decide to build a bigger plant, there will be demand for your offtake from other companies like yours.

On the other hand there are many really small 40 to 300 gallon a day units on the market that would allow small trucking companies to make enough fuel over a weekend the take care of business. The only drawback would be finding a suitable source of oil for the machine.

One of the advantages of the new plants is that they allow the use of a multitude of feedstock, from palm oil to chicken fat, and blends of these different products. All this makes for a more flexible production schedule and process. If soy oil is hitting stratospheric pricing, then a simple computer adjustment will change the process for palm, or recuperated restaurant greases. There is a price flexibility built into the system that is not available with petroleum. And the Federal Government will give you a dollar for every gallon you mix in with your regular load.

The time may have come for you to seriously consider installing your own production facility. Not because it will ensure plentiful supplies of first grade fuel for your trucks, but because biodiesel will soon be mandated somewhere on your routes; because biodiesel is an easy fuel to implement unlike some of the more exotic solutions like hydrogen. But mostly you should look into it because it will give you the feeling of doing something very important for your trucks, your drivers and the world in general.

The Changing Face of Biodiesel

The New World of Biodiesel Production
Peter Brown

Imagine a three way chicken and egg question, what came first, the chicken, the egg or the nest? That is the latest conundrum facing anyone trying to get started in the biodiesel business. How do you ensure that over the life of your plant your production will find an open market, access to feedstock, will not contravene local ordinances, and will have a trained and efficient pool of employees and other random thoughts?

Right now, the best answer is to start with the feedstocks because that determines how far and how fast you can adapt to changing market conditions and. Typically feedstock prices represent about 85% of the price of your biodiesel. Never assume that your present choice of feedstock will be available, acceptable or within a reasonable price range when you need it.

Take the case of palm oil; although there are tons of the stuff available all over the world, palm plantations in Africa are for the most part run over and abandoned, still, many countries are now considering legislation to ban palm from their shores because of the food or fuel campaign being so relentlessly pursued in the “civilized” world. In the US for example, no one questions the food versus fuel argument when it comes to soy oil, and soy is so much more useful than palm since it serves as the basis for so many other products, contains one half to a third of the oil compared to palm and is a whole lot healthier. As a biodiesel producer, be aware that ecologists in some parts of the world are not in favor of using existing plant and animal life for transportation purposes.

On the other hand, a small country like Liberia could be completely energy independent using only locally available palm oil, a cold crushing facility and a medium sized biodiesel plant. Fully 80% of their potential production is overgrown through neglect, wars and disease, but what remains could power generators, trucks and buses and revive the economy replacing $18.00 a gallon gas with $1.45 biodiesel.

Predicting new feedstocks is an arcane science, jatropha came out of nowhere, and there is much talk of camelina or algae. Will the new processors be able to handle these newer oils? Will animal fats be cheaper? How will they be prepared for production? We only recommend a multi feedstock processor because as long as the chosen feedstock meets the basic chemical composition criteria, you can probably make biodiesel out of it without too many constraints. But be aware that a “small” change can hide a lot of rework, so if the processor is flexible then the programming can adapt the catalyst, feedstock, and methanol equation quite easily to meet your immediate requirements. If not, plan to spend quality time with your plant designer.

Even the new oils may come with a high price up the learning curve. Jatropha is not the easy conversion we all thought it would be and we are hearing stories from places like Mozambique and Peru that the oil itself needs careful monitoring, let alone harvesting and crushing. It may be cheap, but there may be a reason for that. Algae oil is slowly appearing in experimental reactors and ponds, but the jury is still out on the ideal mono-cell, the way to harvest the oil and how to create a sustainable economic model for the colorful scum.

Lowering the feedstock price is an essential tactic for the new installation and one way to do that is to blend different oils so that the FFA and other levels are within acceptable transesterification limits. Not all units can handle blends, and some blends can be exotic like chicken fat and soy, or coconut and palm. These are actual requests that EMT has fielded from places like Fiji and Liberia, places where mistakes will be hard to correct and changes impossible to implement. The term blending does not mean mixing the various oils as they head into the processor, it means a homogeneous blending of all the components so that the output does not contain pockets of one or the other feedstock, and that blending comes with a price. Blending is a centrifuge or two beavering away ahead of the processing plant.

As far as exotic oils and strange blends, wise plant manufacturers will protect themselves in one of two ways. The first is to test run the plant for final delivery on their approved oil, most often virgin soy, and provide the buyer with the keys to the plant only after it has run on that oil for a specific number of hours producing ASTM or EN standard fuel. The second will request a sample of the oil that will be run in the plant and have enough adjustments built into the system to allow for other oils to be used. Always get the second option because there are many ways that the future of the facility will hinge on the ready acceptance of alternate feedstocks. But again, most of the plants built over the last four years are probably running on a different feedstock than originally planned, and high on that list are WVO and animal fats.

Feedstock flexibility and availability are not the only considerations, there are volume considerations. The facility is expected to run continuously at near capacity, but what if there are climactic considerations, availability issues, local ordinances and other reasons to slow down production? What if, as happened recently in a facility in France, for religious reasons a 100,000 ton unit was not allowed to blend non-kosher animal fats because the glycerin offtake would be unsellable in Africa? That is where the ability to run portions of the plant is an essential consideration. The modern modular facilities have multiple production lines. This has two advantages, the first was just discussed, and the second is that there can be no single source failures leading to a complete system shutdown with the attendant horrors of an idle plant while the single large processor is repaired. Continuous production on multiple lines can be slowed or even stopped on two of the lines for whatever reason, and startups are simpler because the facilities can be brought on line sequentially. Each line can be tailored to perform specific tasks to meet clear goals. One can be highly productive for glycerin offtakes, the others strictly ASTM biodiesel.

Robert Luiten, CEO of Zenergy International Inc. started his whole operation with a clear idea of what biodiesel and the energy world going forward would entail. “We decided right from the start that every one of our facilities would enable flexibility and ability to act on opportunities to ensure profitability at all times. We will be opening world scale facilities in France, Malaysia, both sides of the United States, South America and possibly Africa with a clear understanding that all our facilities will have an underlying mission of allowing any feedstock at any time and without national limits. Each facility will be ecologically clean, have a small footprint, be standardized across the globe, allow for expansion to meet specific needs and will be logistically optimized. There is no other way to meet the challenges coming at us in the biodiesel market.”

Feedstock issues are the first step, processor technology issues are another. But having settled them, you are going to decide what size facility you will need. Usually the best options is to determine your optimal feedstock availability and add 20% more capacity to ensure that in year 5 of operations you will have the ability to meet increased demand. The increase may tax your available financing, but it will be worth it in the long run. We have watched a number of facilities built around the world and very often the startup is hardly completed when the owner applies to double his capacity. It really makes no difference if the plant was a 10,000 Ton unit or a 100,000 ton unit, the need to grow is universal, the demand for product steadily increases.

Also, give yourself credit for a steep learning curve; what was an insurmountable obstacle when you first started your project is now random and routine. Your new knowledge will allow you to negotiate better prices, put you in contact with local, national and international businesses, increase your credit limit and provide a host of new services you never knew existed.

But if you really are unable to swallow the 20% increase, a better tactic is to drop down 15% in size to locate yourself in a more comfortable zone with a facility that allows doubling in size with little additional inputs further down the line. Discuss this with the plant designer so that he can incorporate redundant sections, larger capacities and adequate foundations to support the eventual increase. Also make sure that the design you select can be upgraded in an easy operation that will not require new buildings, new controls and additional employees. Stacking key components and over sizing blenders, dryers, pumps and piping is best done earlier rather than later.

Other roadblocks to getting the most for your money include a too small site, access restrictions, and local ordinances. This is where long term planning comes in handy.

Locating the plant in relation to a number of factors for example can be crucial. Your plant site will play a key role in what type of facility you will be running. In the US we are seeing a move towards smaller regional facilities located not too far from specific feedstocks, within walking distance of a crusher and serviced by a rail spur with load and offload racks. These operations address the crucial issue of feedstock and biodiesel transportation, and are built and operated by a local or regional group. Financing is often from a local branch of a large bank and the whole operation rapidly becomes a source of community pride, jobs and taxable income.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, and not competing with the local facility, are the huge, multinational companies who build larger facilities in or near ports because they have few illusions and intend to tap into the international feedstock pool immediately. Where you place your plant is not related to size or anything, but be aware that the location can influence a lot of decisions down the road.

A final note on what is really a very shallow review of the changing face of biodiesel production; make sure that you understand every aspect of your new venture. From legislation and incentives on the books, upcoming rules and regulations, public opinion trends, who your friends are and will be, automotive buying habits, shipping conditions, ecological impacts and other trends. Biodiesel people are a very open and friendly group as a whole, do not hesitate to call and ask, there are websites, government agencies, corporations and journalists waiting for your call.

Make the call, and then build the plant!