Biodiesel Refinery Celebrates Expansion that Makes It Largest of Its Kind in Western U.S.
by John Cox (Bakersfield.com) A clean-energy project two years and more than $40 million in the making got a proper christening Thursday as Denver-based Crimson Renewable Energy Holdings LLC celebrated an expansion that cements its position as the largest producer of ultra-low carbon biodiesel in the Western United States.
The company’s 11-year-old biodiesel plant along Millux Road a half-hour south and west of Bakersfield can now process an extra 13.3 million gallons per year of biodiesel made primarily from recycled cooking oil, trap grease and rendered animal fats. Its total capacity is now close to 50 million gallons per year, or about 3,300 barrels daily.
Crimson’s expansion, supported by the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and funded in part by a $9.4 million grant from the California Energy Commission, builds on Kern County’s profile as the state’s leading producer of renewable energy and biofuels.
Not only can the 56-acre plant process more materials than before, but it can also refine a wider variety of feedstocks from across the West, such as brown grease.
“You can think of this as a kind of specialized recycling facility,” said President and CEO Harry Simpson of plant operator Crimson Renewable Energy LP. He added that there is no other facility like it in the country. READ MORE
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