[Biodiesel News] New York plant benefiting from synergies

New York plant benefiting from synergies

Biodiesel Magazine - Grand Forks,ND,USA

by Dave Nilles. A former Miller Brewing Co. brewery in north-central New York is showing that beer and biodiesel make a good fit. ...

 

A former Miller Brewing Co. brewery in north-central New York is showing that beer and biodiesel make a good fit. It’s also providing a proving ground for the synergies between the nation’s foremost renewable fuels industries.

 

NextGen Fuel Inc. is in the midst of constructing a 5 MMgy biodiesel plant at the brewery-turned-business park 25 miles northwest of Syracuse in Fulton, NY, according to NextGen CEO Jeff DeWeese. The plant is expected to become operational later this year.

 

It will do so in the shadow of what will become a 100 MMgy fuel ethanol plant. Lurgi PSI recently began construction on Northeast Biofuels LLC, according to Northeast Biofuels’ Eric Will.

 

Both projects are located in what is now the Riverview Business Park.

 

DeWeese said the skid-mounted biodiesel plant is approximately 85 percent complete. It’s being built in NextGen’s Ohio manufacturing facility, where it will be shipped from once ready for installation in Fulton. The former brewery is expected to provide ample storage and infrastructure for the biodiesel and ethanol facilities. “The motivating factor was the infrastructure there,” DeWeese said. “There are growing synergies.”

 

NextGen’s biodiesel plant will use soy oil as feedstock. The company designs and builds its own facilities, according to DeWeese. He said the plant can handle multiple feedstocks with up to 8 percent free fatty acids (FFA). If higher FFA feedstock is used, an esterification unit can be added to the plant to treat the incoming feedstock, DeWeese said. He added that the plant itself is approximately 20 feet by 40 feet in size. “Every unit we manufacture undergoes a factory acceptance test in-house before it is shipped,” DeWeese said.

 

NextGen’s biodiesel plants convert feedstocks to biodiesel through a patented process DeWeese referred to as “chemical process intensification,” which was developed by researchers at Potsdam, NY’s Clarkson University. He said his company offers facilities in 5 MMgy or 10 MMgy continuous-flow modular designs.

 

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Posted by Vince to Biodiesel News at 9/20/2006 05:30:00 AM