Demonstrate Integrated Renewable Energy Technologies for Biorefineries
Renewable Integration for a Sustainable Biorefinery
Biodiesel Industries of Ventura, LLC
Recipient
Santa Barbara, CA
Recipient Location
21st
Senate District
37th
Assembly District
$1,828,954
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The pilot project successfully demonstrated that low carbon intensity inedible feedstocks can successfully be grown on some of the California’s Central Valley marginal farmland to produce biodiesel. They also indicated that the byproducts can be effectively used to create combined heat and power producing electricity.
The Issue
Biodiesel is one of the most promising pathways to energy independence and sustainability in California and the world. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 50-88 percent depending, upon the feedstock used. To create a sustainable model, inedible crops for biodiesel production must be developed for California.
Project Innovation
Biodico Sustainable Refineries created a prototype biorefinery - MPU (Modular Production Unit) - integrating anaerobic digestion using inedible crops, gasification, solar thermal cogeneration and low carbon feedstock into a single system. This system has the potential to deliver significant economic and environmental gains in the biodiesel production process. The Biodico Sustainable Refineries project looked at developing new sources of feedstocks using inedible seed crops, considered how biodiesel byproducts, such as crude glycerin, can be used as new renewable resources to generate new sources of energy during the biodiesel production process and combine them with other technologies such as solar thermal; and how biodiesel can be produced entirely from self-generated heat and power.
Project Benefits
Biodico Sustainable Refineries successfully developed a prototype biorefinery - MPU (Modular Production Unit). Dozens of varietals inedible seed crop were analyzed. Anaerobic digestion was performed on three prototype scale anaerobic digesters with varying process technologies. A 20 kW grid-connected gasifier with heat recovery was used to process the seed waste. The solar cogeneration equipment was parabolic mirrored thin strip photovoltaic panels with heat recovery.
Affordability
It lowers the energy bill for owners of the integrated unit. It lowers costs of biodiesel for the consumers.
Environmental Sustainability
This project has no environmental impacts. The project uses sustainable energy at no environmental cost.
Reliability
The project uses all integrated renewable energy. It does not rely on any heat and power from the grid.
Key Project Members
Russell Teal
Felix Villanueva
Subrecipients
Cogenra Solar, Inc.
All Power Labs, Inc.
