Fire on the mountain: Pacific Biodiesel plant threatened but OK

Photo: Maui County

June 6, 2013

BY Ron Kotrba

A fire started last weekend at the Eko Compost site in Maui, shutting down the Central Maui Landfill - Refuse & Recycling Center, the Olowalu Recycling & Refuse Convenience Center, and Pacific Biodiesel Technologies’ grease collection facility earlier this week. Maui County firefighters along with county and state crews worked together to get the blaze under control.

“We had damage to a couple of chassis and tanks, but the plant itself was unaffected,” Beth Mathias, director of sales and marketing with Pacific Biodiesel Technologies, told Biodiesel Magazine. “We were down for one day as the landfill was closed while the fire department secured the area.”  

Last year, Pacific Biodiesel Technologies collected more than 1.75 million gallons of trap grease and used cooking oil at its Maui facility, where the company removes the moisture, insolubles and unsaponifiables (MIU) before shipping the rendered feedstock to its new 5.5 MMgy Big Island Biodiesel refinery. 

Advertisement

 

Advertisement

Related Stories

A notice published in the Federal Register by the U.S. EPA indicates that far fewer parties than originally anticipated have registered with the agency as biointermediate producers under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Read More

With exclusive licensing to a camelina seed variety, Ash Creek Renewables is breaking down barriers to a renewable future.

Read More

The USDA reduced its estimate for 2024-’25 soybean use in biofuel production in its latest WASDE report, released May 12. The agency expects soybean oil use in biofuel to increase during the 2025-’26 marketing year.

Read More

HutanBio on May 8 announced that the production process for its proprietary HBx microalgal biofuel achieves net-negative carbon emissions, based on an independent cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted by EcoAct.

Read More

According to a new economic contribution study released by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association on May 6, Iowa biofuels production has begun to reflect stagnant corn demand throughout the agriculture economy.

Read More

Upcoming Events

Sign up for our e-newsletter!

Advertisement

Advertisement