This is a session report from the Virginia Biodiesel Conference, hosted by Virginia Clean Cities on September 29, 2010.
Submitted by Kevin Finder, Convened by Stephen Versen at Table B & C

Attendees: Tom Brenneman, Robert Nofsinger, Bishop Dansby, Kevin Finder, Stephen Versen, Riley Snell, Nathan Pence, Yvonne Conder, Joan Hollen, Carl Pawgle, Kimberly Swanson, Judy Peak, Kelly Sites, Joel Hensley, Dean Price, Al Weed, Alleyn Harned

Feedstock
Tax Credit in ’04
Sustainability = Take control of feedstock
Eco-solutions
Work with farmers to sell to restaurants and get the oil back as a byproduct
90% of dollar when biodiesel is sold is reused compared to 10-15% with
petroleum diesel

Soy oil is the primary feedstock to make biodiesel – 18% usable oil

Compared to canola oil – 44% usable oil

Other companies rely on reused vegetable oil as main feedstock

RECO – almost 100% of obtainable oil pie chart is reusable waste grease

Largest competitor of waste oils are the animal feed markets
Only way to make it sustainable is to get the farmers involved – waste oil will not last

Crushing facility to make oil for farmers to take back to use in their equipment
Farmer should control market by using a locally grown virgin oil
Right now shipping seed for a large source to a fuel center is much cheaper
In order to make it sustainable it needs to become a regional economic market

Where does scale start to play a role in biodiesel production?
Have to have a market for biodiesel because diesel is still cheaper that bio – no one wants to buy more expensive fuel
Petroleum companies have too much invested in the national consumer standard that renewable will never replace or compete with petroleum

If you can grow your own stock than we can begin to bring prices down on biodiesel

State level can start by doing something with bio energy to power generators

Algae overrated?
10 times more efficient than bio fuels
Tier 1 is to make sure that we are recycling oils
Tier 2 is then to determine the efficiency of oils
Tier 3 – is it worth having farmers grow and produce algae farms large enough to compete
Study done by DOE – algae has tremendous potential, however, there is nothing on the immediate horizon to harvest it
Virginia can produce ~22 million gallons of biodiesel today and hope to become the first to produce 1 gallon of cost-efficient algal fuel

Glycerin – Burn glycerin to create electricity to power a biodiesel plant
Has plenty of value

Mostly focusing on existing waste products instead of crushing all the feed that filters through the farms = SUSTAINABILITY
Problem is that the fuels are so expensive that it all comes down to politics
Trying to make a product and bring it in to an already existing competitive market
Every community will need to collaborate and be on the same level and that is the only way that it will become sustainable
If we do not control price of fuel then we will never have a commodity that is of any value and politically we are not willing to do that
RFS2 program
Community Facilities
Feed-in tariffs (Model used in Germany) – use a buyer / seller incentive model

Republican Energy Policy
Nothing to do with renewable energy sources
Nuclear energy, offshore drilling, plug-in electric vehicles, etc.
Sustainability = Take control of feedstock

Work with farmers to sell to restaurants and get the oil back as a byproduct

If you can grow your own stock than we can begin to bring prices down on biodiesel

State level can start by doing something with bio energy to power generators

Every community will need to collaborate and be on the same level and that is the only way that it will become sustainable

If we do not control price of fuel then we will never have a commodity that is of any value and politically we are not willing to do that

Feed-in tariffs (Model used in Germany) – use a buyer / seller incentive model