Piedmont meets Denmark
Like the Muppets Take Manhattan…Rachel and Greg just spent the week in Denmark and heres their report back:
I started my visit in Denmark with a stop in Aarhus, Denmark. Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark and is home to AAK a large vegetable oil crush plant and refinery. I had the distinct privilege of touring their facility last week after meeting a contact at the most recent AOCS meeting in Orlando this year, AAK refines all the of the major edible oils- rapeseed, palm, soy, in addition to shea nut. The tour at AAK was quite impressive- being able to see operating vegetable oil hydrogenation, hexane extraction, shea nut milling, deodorization, caustic refining, and interesterification. 
What was particularly fascinating was the shea nut processing- see at Piedmont we often receive offer for unique feedstocks for biodiesel. Recently we got a call to purchase 55 tons of shea nut butter- this material is quite saturated and solid at room temperature. We can make methyl esters out of it although it is not likely to pass the cold soak filtration test anytime soon. Actually we would prefer to hand it out to coop members who are soap makers and massage therapists.
My friend and Aarhus tour guide, Peter, gave me the grand tour of Aarhus including the old cathedral, river area, and the local art museum. In the center of town, we stopped at a public art display with distinct climate change messaging throughout the show. Biodiesel promotion and usage is publicly known here in Denmark. Although we did not rent a diesel car, 5% biodiesel is available at public pumps with fuel provided by two Danish biodiesel producers, Emmelev and Daka. One of the producer uses animals fats for feedstock and the other uses rapeseed oil.
Over the weekend, I met up with Greg and Morgan who traveled from Moldova to Copenhagen and onto Aarhus where we began our trip to the Danish Mecca of renewable energy- the Nordisk Folkecenter for Renewable Energy. We drove north to the Jutland peninsula over long-spanning bridges and the myriad of wind turbines that provide 100% energy for Jutland.
We arrived early to Folkecenter and got the opportunity to explore the campus with its fifteen active renewable buildings or demo sites. They have a beautiful greenhouse dome, strawbale guest house, solar thermal and PV demos, several wind turbines, both small & large plus the only hydrogen filling station in Denmark. The Folkecenter also has a great small scale oilseed crushing and processing demonstration and like Piedmont they used to provide Elsbett conversion workshops as well. 
After spending the night at in the strawbale house, Greg, Morgan and I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of the Folkecenter, Preben Maegaard. Preben gave us the history and evolution of the folkcenter in the global renewable energy movement. The Folkecenter was founded in 1974 and for much of its operation received 1.5 million dollars (not kroners or euros) of annually baseline funding with a peak of 25 employees. In 2002 the Danish government unfortunately pulled the Folkecenter baseline funding. Now the Folkecenter is primarily an educational facility providing tours for school and industry groups. Their research efforts are focused upon a wave energy test facility.
On our way back to Copenhagen, we stopped in the world famous Legoland. Built in 1968, it is the Disneyworld of Denmark complete with lego-themed roller coaster rides. Granted Legoland is no longer owned by Lego; The Danish Legoland with its US and German locations are now US owned and operated.
Yet the primary reason for the trip to Denmark was meeting with the biodiesel group at Novozymes. Piedmont Biofuels recently received some grant funding for enzymatic biodiesel production research from the NC Biofuels Center in collaboration with the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation and Novozymes. The meeting with Novozymes team was great and Per was an excellent host. We spent the late afternoon on a walking tour in Christiana. Christiana is an autonomous zone or free-town that started in 1971. It is essentially a well-established community squat- full with all walks of houses, tipis, camping tent areas, restaurants, cafes, and even solar arrays. As we walked the community, Greg and I took note of similarities and differences to the Bubble. There is a significant amount of controversy and often protests now that the Danish government is working to normalize the community.
As part of our meetings in Copenhagen, Greg and I also got to visit the Chemical and Management Engineering departments at the Danish Technical University (DTU). DTU is also a collaborative partner in this sustainable biodiesel project They are quite advanced in evaluating the life-cycle analyses (LCA) of industrial process. For this project, DTU is evaluating the LCA of both chemical catalysis and enzymatic catalysis for biodiesel production. Collaboration with DTU will help our understanding of our current energy balance research. But now that we are back- we have tons of work to do on our enzymatic project.
Original post by Rachel