Chevron buys into biodiesel, Fill 'er up with

Chevron buys into biodiesel
MyWestTexas.com - Midland,TX,USA
said it has taken a 22 percent stake in Texas-based Galveston Bay Biodiesel, which is building a large-scale plant on the north side of Galveston Island ...

Chevron Corp. said it has taken a 22 percent stake in Texas-based Galveston Bay Biodiesel, which is building a large-scale plant on the north side of Galveston Island, across from Pelican Island.

Biodiesel is a clean-burning fuel derived from fats such as vegetable oil.

The $15 million production and distribution facility is scheduled for completion by year-end and would have an annual capacity of 100 million gallons of biodiesel, although it will start with initial production of 20 million gallons. It will employ 12 people, Chevron officials said.

Chevron made the $3.5 million investment, its first in biodiesel, through a subsidiary, Chevron Technology Ventures.

"This is the beginning," said Don Paul, vice president and chief technology officer for Chevron Corp. "Our interest is in understanding the issues associated with such production so you know where to go in the future in terms of how to scale up and all the things you need to learn when you're adding new types of processes like this."

 

Fill 'er up with
OregonLive.com - Portland,OR,USA
Or unless you're a biodiesel user, in which case a fill-up is just another skirmish in the good fight. ... Biodiesel is easily enough defined. ...
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A trip to the gas station isn't much fun these days, unless you enjoy feeling like a pawn of multinational corporations. Or unless you're a biodiesel user, in which case a fill-up is just another skirmish in the good fight.

"The great thing about biodiesel is it feels like you're sticking it to the man every time you fill up," says Portlander Sarah Horton, "no matter how you define 'the man.' "

Biodiesel is easily enough defined. Vegetable oil or animal fat -- used deep-fryer oil works great, as does lowly kitchen-trap grease -- is combined with alcohol and a lye-like catalyst to create biodiesel. This fuel is elegant in its simplicity, environmental friendliness and political punch.

Biodiesel can be used in diesel engines with little or no modification. It can be homebrewed in small batches, and the byproducts are water and glycerin, which has a robust industrial market.

Every gallon we make of this sustainable, clean-burning fuel helps wean the U.S. off foreign oil while supporting local economies.

No wonder biodiesel is a buzz in green Eugene and Portland, where the bikes and the Birkenstocks roam, but it's hardly the sole province of natural-fiber-wearing, NPR-listening tree-huggers. With the high cost of gas and record oil company profits, biodiesel is going mainstream. Willie Nelson, too

Horton, who runs a VW New Beetle and an old Ford pickup on biodiesel, first learned about it in Arizona from a network of "bizarre, off-the-grid cowboy guys." And Willie Nelson doesn't just sing about the plight of the American farmer these days. His company sells BioWillie (www.wnbiodiesel.com/), a biodiesel blend, to American truckers who want "Farm-Fresh Biodiesel."

Nor would anyone accuse Arlington ranch hand Don Williamson of being a Birkenstock wearer. But he is one of the state's leading biodiesel advocates. He makes about 5,000 gallons a year from used restaurant cooking oil, processing it in rigs he designs and fabricates.

Most of the pumps, tractors and rolling stock on the ranch where he works run on biodiesel, and he heats his shop and home with the stuff for an annual savings of about $15,000.

The National Biodiesel Board says 45 U.S. plants brewed 75 million gallons of biodiesel in 2005, three times as much as in 2004. And 2006 production is on track to double 2005, according to the board's figures. More than 55 new plants are planned, including a 100-million-gallon-a-year facility just announced to be built near Aberdeen, Wash.

Yes, that's just a ripple in the 45-billion-gallon lake of petro diesel the U.S. burns in a year, but biodiesel's prospects are buoyant. Tomas Endicott of SeQuential Biofuels, Oregon's only processor of commercial biodiesel, predicts the fuel will account for 2 percent to 5 percent of the U.S. market by 2015. That's 900 million to 2.25 billion gallons.

Some biodiesel misconceptions must be overcome, though. Doesn't biodiesel actually increase emissions? The Environmental Protection Agency's 2002 study found pure biodiesel produces a 10 percent increase in nitrogen oxide, a chief contributor to smog. But pure biodiesel also offers a 47 percent drop in particulate matter and a 67 percent decrease in unburned hydrocarbons. In addition, sulfur oxides and sulfates -- which contribute to acid rain -- are practically eliminated. Overall, an environmental win.

But doesn't biodiesel take more energy to make than it yields? Using soybeans, the main source for biodiesel nationally, a 1998 National Renewable Energy Laboratory study says the fuel yields about 3.2 units of energy for every unit consumed. A 2005 Cornell University study, however, maintains that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops uses more fuel than it generates, which doesn't apply in Oregon, where the majority of biodiesel is made with waste vegetable oil.

Perhaps that's one reason Goran Jovanovic, a professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State University, calls the Cornell study "gibberish."

"It takes more energy to produce a gallon of gasoline than a gallon of biodiesel," Jovanovic says. Keeping the money here

Then there are the economic multipliers: Three bucks spent on a gallon of biodiesel could stay almost entirely in the Oregon economy, going to the farmers who grew the rapeseed, mustard seed or canola, the local producers who processed the oil and the wholesalers and retailers who sold it.

By contrast, your petro diesel and gasoline dollars are exported around the globe to producers, refiners, trucking companies -- maybe they're even a part of that tidy $400 million package Exxon's former CEO, Lee Raymond, retired with last December. Maybe your bucks were some of the $36 billion that made up Exxon's record profits last year.

Neither inspires much in the way of bumper stickers. I've yet to see a: "Proud contributor to Lee Raymond's golden years." But "Powered by Biodiesel" stickers are an increasingly common sight -- I was behind a Volkswagen station wagon plastered with at least nine stickers boasting of its biodiesel diet. Pride and a quiet missionary spirit seem to define biodiesel converts.

"You can't look at biodiesel and not fall in love with it," says Mark Fitz, operations manager at Portland fuel wholesaler Star Oilco.

He's right. I can testify, because this natural-fiber NPR listener is seriously looking for a diesel car after years of scorning them as clattering smudge pots. Credit my conversion to the luminous elegance of a sustainable fuel that can be grown and processed locally and is better for engine and environment. "There's no downside"

Most of the faithful respond to that elegance. Brian Jamison owns an open-source software company and is the president of the biodiesel co-operative GoBiodiesel (gobiodiesel.org/). He says it's hard to describe how compelling biodiesel is.

"It makes people into advocates, and that's a mild word," he says. "You get the bug and before you know it, you're putting biodiesel stickers on your car."

Or sailboat, as the case may be. Jamison first used biodiesel in his sailboat's auxiliary engine, having heard that the exhaust would smell sweeter than the nausea-inducing fumes of petro diesel.

That was true enough, but afterward Jamison worried that he'd damaged his new engine. So being a computer guy, he went online to dig up the dirt on biodiesel. "I spent hours on the net and I turned up nothing bad," he remembers. "There was no downside."

Jamison decided that forming a co-operative where dues-paying members help collect waste vegetable oil and brew biodiesel for their use made the most sense. GoBiodiesel exemplifies the community aspect of the biodiesel revolution.

Biodiesel is more than just fuel -- it's part of a fundamental structural change.

We don't need refineries, pipelines, oil tankers and all the rest to make and use biodiesel. The centralized systems we grew up with, supported by cheap and plentiful oil, will be replaced by more local, responsive, sustainable systems. Made-in-Oregon biodiesel

Oregon's only commercial producer, SeQuential-Pacific Biodiesel, also adheres to the "brew it where you burn it" principle. The Salem processing plant, which produces a million gallons of biodiesel a year, is a joint venture of Hawaii-based producer Pacific Biodiesel and SeQuential Biofuels. This Oregon wholesaler created the state's biodiesel market five years ago by selling to public fleets and starting commercial fueling stations.

The plant processes mostly locally obtained waste vegetable oil. This year, they'll close the loop and start making biodiesel from Oregon-grown and extracted canola oil.

It's about time. Oregon burns 2 million gallons of diesel and 4 million of gasoline a day. Figure two bucks a pre-tax gallon and that means we export $12 million a day. Made-in-Oregon biodiesel won't end that, but it's a start.

Besides, we're Oregonians, and homegrown biodiesel fits right in. Why, you can almost see the late Gov. Tom McCall grinning as our old contrarian streak resurfaces. Instead of "Supporting Lee Raymond's golden years," wouldn't this be a much better bumper sticker: "Fill 'er up -- the Oregon Way."