Aemetis facility approved for advanced biofuel RIN contribution

Aemetis, an advanced fuels and renewable chemicals company, has been granted US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval to produce ethanol using grain sorghum and biogas.

The move means the plant’s existing combined heat and power system can generate higher-value D5 advanced biofuels renewable identification numbers (RINs).

The EPA approval also includes D5 RIN generation for separated food waste feedstock used at the California-based facility, allowing Aemetis to qualify its ethanol as advanced biofuels through the processing of certain food/beverage waste streams into ethanol.

‘With $190 million (€144.7 million) of revenues in 2012 from our plants in the US and India, we are already at commercial-scale for the production of non-food advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals,’ says Eric McAfee, Aemetis CEO. ‘Our 50 mgy renewable fuels plant in India was constructed to use the stearine waste product from the edible oils industry to produce non-food biodiesel and refined glycerin.’

The design of its California plant allows Aemetis to use both traditional and advanced feedstocks and energy sources to produce renewable fuels to help meet requirements of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).

Until now, the D5 advanced biofuels RIN portion of the RFS has been mostly met by imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol or by substituting D4 biodiesel RINs due to a lack of advanced ethanol production.

RINs are numerical codes created with every gallon of biofuel domestically produced or imported into the US, playing a dual role as a renewable fuel credit to incentivise use and as a tracking mechanism to monitor the production, movement and blending of biofuels.