For Montana Biofuel, It’s Not Easy Being Green

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March 12, 2013

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by Tom Lutey (Billings Gazette) When it was first promoted as a biofuel source perfect for the Montana plains, camelina looked to many like a weed. Seven tough years later, its persistence is being tested.

Acres planted in the crop have plummeted from 22,500 in 2007 to 2,500 in 2011 and possibly even fewer last year, say biofuel companies that once hoped Montana farmers would seed camelina in acres too tough for wheat.

One of the bigger camelina companies in the state, Sustainable Oils, told The Gazette that its farmers planted just 600 acres in 2012. High payouts for conventional crops, coupled with little to no crop insurance for camelina, worked against the plant that had won support from former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

But biofuel producers say the Environmental Protection Agency might have given camelina the break it has needed. Two weeks ago, the EPA approved camelina oil as a low-carbon feed stock under the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates a steep ramp up in U.S. biofuel use to reduce greenhouse gases.

…Montana Microbial Products perfected a way to make fish food from barley, which created ethanol as a byproduct. The fish food was to answer a chronic problem for fish farms, which feed their trout and salmon pellets made from ground up fish caught off the coast of South America. Those pellets often come from waters polluted with chemical products like fire retardant. The retardant is then passed on to the farmed fish. READ MORE

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