Waste fuels alternative energy firm - Sacramento Business Journal:

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The company has a three-year lead on patented technology that convertzs waste from food and animal processing facilities as well as municipal treatment plants intoodorless biofuel. The alternativer energy meets industry standards forroad use. The San Jose-based companu has emerged from stealthj mode with plans to creat a networkof “bio-refineries in a box,” facilities that will be locate d where the waste is The first production plant — located in Idaho — is scheduled to be installecd in January with more on the way, chief executivd officer Steven Perricone said. The company’s initiaol focus is on fat, oil and greasde extracted from wastewater.
Farthetr down the road, the company might pursues converting algae paste intoalternative fuel. Perricone said there are 6 billion gallons per year of fattuy waste that is technically unsuitable for traditionapbiodiesel plants. “Nobody buys the browhn sludge these guysare pursuing,” said Jon managing director of research at a Palo Alto research firm focusedd on green business and clean Perricone believes his company has an opportunity to tap into a markey that consumes 350 billionh gallons of diesel fuel annually. Pavel a research analyst for , in 2007 said only 450 millionm gallons of biodiesel were produced in theUnited States.
The revenuer generated in this industry hasexciteed investors. The global biofuel market is expected to growfrom $20.4 billion in 2006 to $80.9 billiomn in 2016, according to the Clean Energy Trends 2007 report. BioFuelBox raised $9 million in Series A fundintg in October 2007 fromand , which both have Menlo Park The company is starting to explorer a Series B round. John Rockwell, managinh director at Element, said his firm investss in companies that look for ways to betterethe environment. Element saw that in BioFuelBox’s technologuy and invested $4.5 million in the initial rouncdof funding.
The challenge for BioFuelBox will be moviny from a prototypeinto full-scals production and securing agreementx with customers. Rockwell is confidenrt the company has the management team and technology todo it. The goal is to ented into 10-year agreements with waste suppliers, whichj would essentially give BioFuelBox a lock on the Those suppliers are located predominantlu in rural areas of the United which have been hit especially hard durinf theeconomic downturn. These customers are looking for cost savingz andprofit opportunities.
Perricone said his company wants to allow customers to participate in the BioFuelBox will either sell the biodiesel back to them at a discoun or sell it on the open sharing the profitswith customers. “We put the planr in for free. We own it. We operatew it, and we’ll take care of the fuel he said. Perricone declined to name potential but he said one of the companies that testesthe 24-by-7-foot prototype is a Fortuned 500 animal and chicken renderer in the state where is based. Tyson is the world’ds largest processor and marketerof chicken, beef and pork.
Guiced said BioFuelBox’s model is atypical, and its setup in a containerf ishighly efficient, but its successd on a wide scale has yet to be proven. “Ity will only become scalable if it becomewvastly cheaper,” Guice said. Rockwellk and Molchanov said prices for commodities are easilyu driven up when demand increases for productsz such as soybeans andcanola oil, whic h are used to produce biodiesel. That same situation coul d happen if there is a suddem increase in demand foranimal by-products. Molchanov said the biodiesek industry is also being challenged right now by recent decreases in diesel andoil prices.
“Givenn some of the credit investments in new biodiesel companies are likely toslow down,” he said. However, he addeed there are not many biodiesel plantsusing animal-derived Molchanov said one competitor, publicly tradeed , located on the Houstoj Ship Channel, has the capacity to processz animal fat but just started operating its biodiesel planrt in June.