In Philadelphia, a company is taking grease from restaurants and other facilities that clog the municipal sewer systems and turning it into bio-diesel fuel.
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BLACK GOLD BIO-FUELS was originally the outgrowth of The Energy Cooperative, a nonprofit energy supplier serving southeastern Pennsylvania.
In Feb. 2009, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) approved BlackGold Biofuels (formerly known as Philadelphia Fry-o-Diesel) of Philadelphia, Pa., to become the technology provider for the city’s demonstration-scale biodiesel plant that will convert brown grease into ASTM-quality biodiesel.
BlackGold said it has developed and demonstrated the conversion process at its Philadelphia pilot-scale plant over the past four years and has begun licensing the technology. This proven technology is now being tested in the field and will be licensed to companies and similiar installations nation-wide. They have located their processor within the walls of San Francisco’s sewage treatment plant to take advantage of cost-savings: a hot water loop, latent heating, the transportation corridor, the existing permitting, and the discharge into the treatment works—all of that drops down the cost.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is licensing Black Gold's technology. “We have two great collection programs, which take waste cooking oils and turn them into bio-fuels which eventually will be used in MUNI busses, fire trucks and to help power our sewage treatment plant," explained Natalie Sierra, Program Manager for the SFPUC's Residuals and Bioenergy Program.
"There are two sources and kinds of bio-fuels, yellow grease or fryer oil, which has a high fat content and already has an established market. Our program, called SFGreasecycle, launched in 2007, diverts Fats, Oil and Grease (FOG) away from the sewers and converts it into biofuel. The other is brown grease, which is contaminated by food and water and has a lower free fatty acid content. This brown grease, which originates from restaurant 'trap grease,' had in the past been sent to landfills or flushed down the sewer, only to clog it," Sierra continued. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ON BROWN GREASE PROGRAM
Currently, under the SFGreasecycle program, the yellow grease is sent to processors which convert it into usable bio-diesel –more than 800 restaurants are signed up with the program. The SFPUC uses four different companies on a rotating basis for this, which include: Yokayo Biofuels, Ukiah, CA, Sirona Fuels, Oakland, CA, BioEASI, Gonzales, CA and Bently Biofuels, Minden, NV. Similar companies in Pennsylvania include AGRA BIOFUELS and KEYSTONE BIOFUELS. To learn more about the Bio Diesel industry visit BIO DIESEL MAGAZINE.
Seeing the need for brown-grease-to-biofuel conversion prompted the SFPUC to explore that process. The SFPUC then received a $1.0 million grant from the California Energy Commission to establish a demonstration project that will start producing fuel from brown grease tentatively in March, with the study to be completed in one year. One of the goals of the project is to provide a proto-type for installations nation-wide. Upon producing initial fuel in March, the facility will produce approx. 330 gallons of fuel per day and after a year, the SFPUC will issue a Technology Transfer Report which will include a business plan and a green house gas analysis. For more information on the SFPUC’s SFGreasecycle Program (yellow grease to biofuel), visit SFGreasecycle.com, for information on brown-grease-to-biofuel, contact nsierra@sfwater.org.
There is also an emerging market for crops other than the tradional corn and soybeans as well. At an Oct. 2009 conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Penn State University, the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund and the Harrisburg-based engineering/environmental services firm Herbert, Rowland & Grubic Inc., a handful of farmers in Northwest Pennsylvania are helping to prove that camelina -- a knee-high plant often called a weed -- can help lower diesel fuel costs.
The plant is emerging as a low-maintenance, inexpensive source for oil to make biodiesel. In one study camelina reduced the cost by one-third compared to soybeans.
Pennsylvania and other states have enacted biofuel usage mandates. Pennsylvania requires that every gallon of fuel contain a percentage of ethanol, 10 percent per gallon of gasoline, and biodiesel, from 2 percent to 20 percent, based on how much of each product is made in-state. Two companies providing bio-fuel from these sources are LAKE ERIE BIO-FUELS and UNITED OIL CO.
