Biofuel Expanding to the Big Island
by Peter Sur (West Hawaii Today) A new biodiesel plant that will produce 2.6 million gallons a year is planned for Keaau. …Now an undeveloped property, a little more than a year from now the Maui-based principals of Pacific Biodiesel and subsidiary Big Island Biodiesel hope to have the $10 million plant producing up to 8,000 gallons of biofuel a day.
…The company already has biodiesel plants on Oahu and Maui. King hopes to have one on each island, and also one in West Hawaii to serve Kona’s needs.
“This facility can earn its keep on used cooking oil and trap grease while we wait for biofuel crops to mature,” King said.
One of those crops is adjacent to the industrial park. Hawaii Pure Plant Oil, run by the father-and-son team of Christian and James Twigg-Smith, has planted a 250-acre jatropha plantation on 1,000 leased acres of former sugar and papaya land. The company plans to crush its first crop of seeds next month.
Big Island Biodiesel isn’t limited to that one crop, however. The facility will also be able to process used oils, sunflower oil, algae oil and even fish and animal fats. READ MORE
…(I)n Hilo, Hawaii, Big Island Biodiesel, LLC, has been selected to receive a $5,000,000 loan guarantee through First Hawaiian Bank in Kahului to construct a $10 million, 2.64 million gallon per year biodiesel production plant in Keaau. The feedstock for this biodiesel plant will primarily be used cooking oil, and potentially jatropha and algae. More than one million gallons of used cooking oil and grease-trap oil will be diverted from Maui, Oahu, and Hawaii County landfills to produce the biodiesel. Hawaii has established an Alternative Fuel Standard (AFS) with the goal of providing 10 percent of highway fuel demand from alternate fuels by 2010, 15 percent by 2015, and 20 percent by 2020. READ MORE
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