How To Make Biodiesel

Apr. 11–Though it hardly stands out among the oil refineries and rows of huge fuel storage tanks, a biodiesel plant going up at the Houston Ship Channel is another sign the alternative fuels movement is coming of age. This summer, Houston’s Green Earth Fuels will begin producing diesel fuel made from vegetable oil at its Galena Park site. By this fall, after a second phase is done, the facility will be able to churn out almost 90 million gallons a year of biodiesel, making it one of the nation’s biggest plants of its kind. But the scale of the project may be less notable than the business model and financing behind it. The plant is at the mouth of one of the nation’s largest petroleum pipeline networks in anticipation of the day when biodiesel will be moved by pipe rather than truck, rail and barge. It will have a $100,000 fuel-testing lab on-site, an answer to persistent concerns about spotty biodiesel quality. And it is being financed mainly by private equity money and Goldman Sachs, the powerful Wall Street investment bank. It will open shortly after another 20 million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant, backed in part by San Ramon, Calif.-based oil giant Chevron, starts up in Galveston. Chevron aims to improve the process by lending Big Oil know-how to the plant. The projects are the latest examples of how the upstart alternative fuels industry is growing more sophisticated as it vies for a larger piece of the U.S. fuel supply. “The big potential for this market is that it’s no longer going to be a niche fuel; it’s going to be a seamless part of the diesel infrastructure system,” said Jeffrey Trucksess, Green Earth’s executive vice president of regulatory and government affairs. U.S. biodiesel production more than doubled last year to an estimated 225 million gallons. The industry has set a goal to replace 5 percent of the country’s petroleum diesel for on-road uses by 2015 — equating to 2 billion gallons, according to the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group in Jefferson City, Mo. From soybeansBiodiesel, which is made primarily from renewable sources such as soybean oil and has lower overall tailpipe emissions that petroleum diesel, has been touted as a way to help wean America from imported oil. But experts say the rising price of vegetable oils and the threat of losing government incentives could stifle biodiesel’s growth. “It’s still got a long ways to go,” said Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation in Washington. Putting experience to useGreen Earth’s executives applied years of experience in the energy industry to systematically enter the biofuels sector. As in the oil business, the team has established a hedging system to guard against commodity price spikes, Trucksess said. It is using long-term contracts to lock in prices for soybean oil and other biodiesel feedstocks, he said. Green Earth has also tried to remove some of the barriers to broader biodiesel distribution by locating within a sprawling fuel- handling terminal in Galena Park. The facility is owned by Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan and is in an area that contains terminals of nearly all the major oil companies. “Rather than locate, say, in the Midwest, we picked our location strategically, within the existing diesel infrastructure,” Trucksess said. Under an agreement with Green Earth, Kinder Morgan said in February it will invest up to $100 million to expand terminal facilities in Houston, New Orleans and New York to accommodate more biodiesel. Officials with the firm, which controls 27,000 miles of U.S. petroleum pipelines, have said they are studying ways to transport biofuels by pipeline, which could help stoke the market in coming years. “I think it’s right to say we’re exploring all possibilities,” said Emily Thompson, a Kinder Morgan spokeswoman. Only a matter of time?Investors who own a controlling interest in Green Earth believe it’s only a matter of time before the challenges confronting biodiesel are solved. “We’re just in the early days of biodiesel,” said Michael Hoffman, managing director of a $685 million private equity fund formed last year by The Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings to invest in renewable energy projects. The two firms, along with Goldman Sachs, own a controlling interest in Green Earth, he said. The Green Earth plant in Houston will be a template for other plants the company is planning in the region and on the East and West coasts, Hoffman said. The ultimate goal is to control a truly national biodiesel production chain, and the company will continue adding sites as the market allows, he said. brett.clanton@chron.com Credit: Houston Chronicle

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