Biofuels survival: the innovative way

In the credit squeeze and with plants idling around them, biodiesel producers are keen to ensure what they bring into the plant and what they produce out of it will survive the winter.

Having a flexible source of raw materials is one way to weather the volatile ride the industry is taking. Biodiesel producer Innovation Fuels has been processing waste vegetable oil to produce biodiesel, but is now focusing its efforts on the Brassica family of crops, which includes mustard seed, rapeseed, and canola.

Greater attention however is being paid to two more sustainable non-food feedstocks pennycress and camelina.

‘We have been growing pennycress and camelina in test centres in north east US and Canada, where we met our yield targets, which was surprising given we set them so high,’ Innovation Fuels’ CEO John Fox exclusively tell Biofuels International magazine.

‘We’re evaluating about six different strains to see what grows best in which region, and by mid to end 2010 we expect to see enough crops coming out so we can supply a quarter of the production from our Newark facility, and by 2011 these sustainable crops will supply all feedstock for full capacity. Using pennycress brings us more control over feedstock input costs and a greater ability to increase our margins.’

In March 2009, the producer launched an initiative to create the country’s first integrated biodiesel plant in New Jersey using pennycress. The company is partnering with two New Jersey-based companies to plant the non-edible pennycress at two test sites in New Jersey.

Pennycress grows wild and prolifically throughout the US, and can yield up to 100 gallons/acre of high quality feedstock oil for the production of biodiesel.

The crop is typically planted in the fall (Q3) and harvested in the spring (Q1), so producers can cultivate and harvest pennycress without interfering with normal production of corn or soyabeans, while increasing revenue from the same acreage.

Pennycress will also improve fuels in the future, ensuring this player survives into the winter months. In northern regions of the US and Europe, producers follow the requirement of EN specifications that all fuel in winter needs a -15°C cold flow plug point, ‘which is difficult to meet with all feedstocks except rapeseed,’ Fox points out. ‘But these sustainable crops, pennycress and camelina, can meet -20°C.’

This ability to produce a fuel that excels in winter is also key to the survival of a fractured market. ‘The industry is in survival mode,’ Fox asserts. ‘It’s not a good time and producers are trying to survive till next year.’

Feedstock flexibility aside, the producer is expanding what type of green fuel comes out the back, preparing for the future. ‘We’re producing heating oil forward for October, November and December shipments when things will pick up.’

There is high demand for biologically-derived heating oil blends at 10-15% in the US which is cleaner than burning natural gas. ‘Many plants moved to heating oil earlier on as that’s where the buyers are buying, from an economical standpoint.’

In the middle of last year the operator upgraded its New York Harbour plant from 150,000 barrels a year to 950,000 barrels. Innovation Fuels now has sky-bound ambitions, as it investigates producing jet fuel further down the line.