Animal Fat Converted into Biodiesel at Biorefineries

Animal Fat Converted into Biodiesel Fuel at Bio refineries There is a new drive to make fuel off the fat of the land. In early 2009, High Plains Bioenergy opened a biorefinery next to a pork-processing plant in Guyman, Okla. The refinery takes pork fat — an abundant, low-value by-product of the industrial butchering process–and converts it, along with vegetable oil, into biodiesel. The plant is expected to turn 30 million pounds of lard into 30 million gallons of biodiesel a year. In 2010 the HIgh Plains facility will be joined by a plant in Geismar, La. that will be run by Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture between Tyson Foods and energy company Syntroleum. That plant will use the fat from Tyson’s beef , chicken and pork operations to create 75 million gallons of biodiesel and jet fuel annually. Yet the biodiesel industry has been battered recently, with many plants sitting idle for lack of demand.

Low oil prices have made petroleum-based diesel fuel less expensive than biodiesel, which in the U.S. is typically made form soy and vegetable oils. A $1 per gallon federal tax credit for biodiesel has helped soften the blow, but that credit is set to expire at the end of the year. Some manufacturers worry that if the credit disappears , so will their business. Tyson had earlier partnered with ConocoPhillips to produce biodiesel at an existing ConocoPhillips refinery in Borger, Tex. But insecurity about the status of the tax break has put the project on hold.

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