Biodiesel plant coming to Ellenwood

Biodiesel plant coming to Ellenwood
Henry Herald - McDonough,GA,USA
... BullDog BioDiesel will be converting a former Goodyear tire plant into a plant that creates a clean-burning alternative fuel produced from domestic renewable ...

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Gov. Sonny Perdue announced on Tuesday the renovation of an old Ellenwood tire plant to make room for a $10 million alternative fuel production facility.

BullDog BioDiesel will be converting a former Goodyear tire plant into a plant that creates a clean-burning alternative fuel produced from domestic renewable sources, officials announced at the plant Tuesday.

“The announcement today is about more than just 15 tech jobs and a $10 million investment, although we are proud of that,” said Perdue, a Republican looking for his second term in office with a November win. “This announcement is about the future and the way we will do our fuels in the future. BullDog BioDiesel is one of several companies serving as a catalyst to propel Georgia forward in alternative fuels.”

Dr. John McWhirter, chief executive officer for BullDog BioDiesel, said, “This plant site may not look like a biodiesel plant right now, it was a tire plant. But in the short span of six or seven months, it is going to look like a biodiesel plant that is second to none. This plant will have an annual production capacity of 15 billion gallons a year and is going to be one of several we are going to put throughout the country over the next year or two.”

McWhirter said biodiesel is a fairly new technology that uses resources such as vegetable oil, soy bean oil, waste oil and animal fats.

“The role that biodiesel is really going to play I think is somewhat misunderstood by people. We can’t make enough of it to substantially displace all the petroleum diesel we need to run all these trucks down the highway,” said McWhirter. “We currently use 40 billion gallons of biodiesel fuel a year. If we took all the vegetable oil and all the resources that we could, and said forget what we are using now, we are turning it in to biodiesel, we could only make about 5 percent. So the role that it plays is that you mix biodiesel, anywhere from 5 to 20 percent, with petrodiesel and that blend becomes a vastly superior diesel fuel.”

Perdue said even though the price of fuel has recently dropped, there is still a challenge to be less dependent on foreign oil.

“I believe energy is one of the macro challenges of our future. Not just in our state, but in our nation. Our sense of urgency ebbs and flows with supply and demand and therefore prices, but we must have a long term committed comprehensive solution to the energy crisis and we cant wait any longer.”

To encourage the use of alternative fuels, Perdue proposed a sales tax exemption for materials and equipment used in the construction of biofuel facilities in Georgia. The governor estimated the 4 percent tax incentive would save companies $2-4 million per year.

Arriving in a helicopter, Perdue left the ground breaking in a Lincoln Navigator, an SUV Lincoln says gets 13 miles per gallon in the city and 18 miles per gallon on the highway.

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