Biodiesel Plant Plans to Beat Pump Price - 6/2/08

In a big red barn located in Hardin County, Texas there is a biodiesel plant has been turning powdery brown rice bran into biodiesel for a year.  Their goal is to make it cheaper than petroleum diesel.

The folks at Hardin Fuels Inc. plan to make their biodiesel available for on road use very soon.  Kent Batman, president of Hardin Fuels says, “Our goal is to sell for about 30 cents less than pump price.”

The company uses an extruder and a screw press to head and extract oil from, sunflower seeds, fax, cotton seeds and rice bran.

As normal when making biodiesel methanol and lye are mixed with the vegetable oil and is the heated and passed through a centrifuge making biodiesel and glycerin as a byproduct.  The glycerin is sold to cut cost.

The company is currently selling their biodiesel to off road users.  They are waiting for approval from the EPA to sell their biodiesel to on road vehicles which could happen any day.

Hardin fuels began operation in August 2007 and have been producing an average of 2,000 gallons a day.  They have had problems with limited feedstock but have contracted with a new supplier helping the problem.

Batman said the government could help with the growing issue of available feedstock by changing the policies of paying farms not to grow certain crops to paying them to grow crops like sunflowers and rapeseed which product canola oil which is a premium feedstock.

They plan to upgrade the plan to product 3 million gallons of biodiesel a year.

Hardin Fuels began from Robert Martin, vice president of operations interest in making biodiesel at home.  After some study he made a 5 gallon batch and tested it on his new 2006 Ford King Ranch and it worked.

After the $1.1 million investment to develop the plant they are now running at a profit. 

Related links:
Algae to Biodiesel Update
Biofuels: Why They Are So Important
China Biodiesel
Shell Oil Grows Marine Algae to Produce Biodiesel

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