Green Fuels to begin production of FuelMatic biodiesel systems
Photo: Green Fuels of America Inc.
March 25, 2011
BY Erin Voegele
Nevada-based Green Fuels America Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of U.K.-based Green Fuels Ltd., will begin manufacturing feedstock-flexible FuelMatic biodiesel processors this spring. The community-scale production facilities are capable of processing approximately 5,000 gallons of biodiesel per day, equating to an annual production capacity of nearly 1.6 million gallons.
According to Greg Springer, vice president and general manager of Green Fuels America, Green Fuels Ltd. has been manufacturing its FuelMatic line of biodiesel processors for about five years. “There are about 21 of them in the world right now, and seven in backlog,” Springer said, noting that Green Fuels’ manufacturing capacity in England is peaked out. Green Fuels America will now begin manufacturing the productions systems for markets in the western hemisphere. “Out of our office, we are handling markets spanning from Alaska to Argentina,” Springer said.
The FuelMatic systems will be constructed on skids at Green Fuels’ Nevada location. The skids are then loaded into a sea container and shipped to the customer. Once onsite, the unit is connected to chemical tanks and a power source. According to Springer, it takes approximately four to five months to construct a FuelMatic system. Once the system is onsite, it can be brought online in about a week, he added.
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When compared to onsite construction, Springer stresses that the FuelMatic processor is more affordable and can be brought online in a shorter timeframe. This is due, in part, to the fact that the technology for each system is the same and features the same control panels and components.
The FuelMatic system is designed specifically for community-scale production. “At the moment we have two specific types of customers for the system,” Springer said. “One is waste vegetable oil collectors, which tend to be near the cities. They just use the waste vegetable oil directly in the machine. The other one is what I call vertically integrated. What that means is this biodiesel plant is situated with a seed crushing plant and a degumming plant under one roof. The seeds, be they camelina, or soybean or jatropha, come into the plant, are crushed, degummed and [converted] into biodiesel.”
Green Fuel has actually partnered with a consortium of experts, including agricultural consultants, seed crushing partners and degumming partners, to offer customers an all-in-one solution to vertically integrated community-scale production. According to Springer, the FuelMatic system can utilize a wide variety of feedsotcks, ranging from virgin vegetable oils, to waste grease and animal fats.
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One of the last machines the company sold was purchased by the state of Chiapas in Mexico, Springer said. The system is serving as an economic development tool. The region is very poor, he said, and local farmers are able to cultivate small plots of jatropha, and sell the resulting fruit to the government, which converts the seeds to biodiesel and uses the fuel to power buses. Another production system that is being exported to Mexico will employ camelina in a vertically integrated production system.
While Green Fuels is currently seeing a lot of demand for its products in Mexico and Columbia, Springer notes the U.S. and Canadian markets are heating up as well. He attributes increased interest to Canada’s recent enactment of a 2 percent biodiesel mandate, volume requirements and RIN prices under the U.S. EPA’s RFS2 program, and increased demand from the oilheat sector.
In addition to the FuelMatic processor, Green Fuels also manufactures small-scale production systems designed for personal use, and a slightly larger system that is capable of producing up to 5 million gallons of biodiesel per year.
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