Local Biodiesel Coop Conference
Rachel is out in Colorado, where she is no doubt cool and relaxed. She sends this entry from afar:
This year’s Coop Conference was also known as the Local Biodiesel Coop Conference.
It just wrapped this evening here in Golden, Colorado. I am here on a renewable energy “sabbatical” training at NREL and was able to catch the Coop conference on the front end of my trip.
This year’s organizing crew, Graydon Blair, John Bush, and Jon Meuser all pulled together an amazing 3 day event. My time at the conference started out on Friday with a session on Biodiesel Safety with the folks from St. Louis Biodiesel Club. Safety was scheduled at the same time as Bob Armatrout’s Biodiesel: Take it or leave it /101 complete with algae taunting and Wal-Mart heckling. It is tough when you want to skip you own session.
I sucked it up and joined the safety crowd- I prepared for this talk last week by asking everyone at the plant to recount all the accidents we have had on project from coop fuel making to construction days of the plant. From those tales, I created a small slideshow about the mistakes we have made and the safety procedures we have in place. From spontaneous combustion to tank grounding to methanol exposure… we hit all points. (In fact I kind of wish the whole crew at piedmont was at this talk, it would have been a good refresher).
I actually skipped the next round of sessions by accident due to some riveting conversation in the break room with the biodiesel legend, Tom Reed who happened to drop by that day. Nonetheless the day was summed up with a extensive panel discussion on the future of feedstocks for biodiesel featuring 3 different algae speakers- Matthew Posewitz and Jon Mesuer both from Colorado State of Mines and Doug Henston from Solix Biofuels. The conclusion remains that nobody has yet to make any useful quantity of biodiesel out of oil from algae, and most projects are in R&D phases slowly moving into pilot projects.
The next morning Bob A & I tagged teamed Biodiesel & the ASTM- I did an overview of all the methods and the latest updates to and Bob rocked the house again with his world famous presentation on analyzing biodiesel with GC ( gas chromatography). At the end we all gathered round for a group 27/3 testing intensive. The 27/3 test is a homebrew quality test for fuel conversion that has been all the rage.
The day continued on a heavy fuel quality track with Graydon Blair & Steve Fugate’s session on more quality testing. Graydon is now offering an ASTM testing service through this company, Fuel test, which seems to be affordable for homebrew and small scale producers.
The women of St.Louis ( and Dave too) blew everyone away with the year’s chapter on methanol recovery- they covered last year’s material on their pot still distillation coupled PLUS the just out of the bag, DIY Falling film evaporator yielding 100% purity methanol from both glycerol and biodiesel layers. Nice work St. Louis!
Sunday morning was all about water. Water in, water out. It was a fabulous addition to the conference having the Colorado Dept of Public Health & environment give real world data from actual permitted biodiesel facilities. At this one 12 million gallon facility, they pay $600 annually to be able to discharge up to 9,000 gallons per day into a nearby lagoon. It is interesting to hear a different state’s regulator information .
At Piedmont Biofuels, we have been very immersed in the world of wastewater with our new recycling efforts.
Bob A stole the show with his slam dunking session on “making money in biodiesel” talk that allowed everyone in the room to graduate with an MBA complete with fixed and variable cost analysis. He also covered permitting distribution and sidestreams in this marathon session. It was definitely time for a local Coors beer after that one!
We all know that the real work at these events is done after hours. Networking with new folks is always where you learn the most. I got to spend some quality time with the people from DieselGreen in Austin. They are leading the charge on used oil collection and grassroots biodiesel distribution in a town where B20 has made it to every street corner. Not an easy task. Nathaniel From Steel City Biofuels and the folks from Lougheed biodiesel in Ontario, Canada had good progress to report in their efforts.
There were folks who also made it to this year’s Sustainable Biodiesel conference- which allowed for some discussion on the upcoming Sustainable Biodiesel Association “green label” and a possible sustainability track at next year’s national Biodiesel conference. Opinions are mixed but there was one fervent view from the crowd that won the quote of the conference- “Go ahead and buy that orangutan-killing palm oil based biodiesel…and we’ll see you in hell” - That ’s definitely one way to put it.
Original post by Lyle