Growing Cost with Bio-diesel Used Cooking Oil & Farming Camelina Resolution
Monday, April 11th, 2011In The United States the renewal of the bio-diesel blending credit has begun to put life into the biodiesel business world. In conjunction with the elevated cost of fossil based fuels it is just a perfect storm for bio-fuels market segment. As of the writing of this short article the cost of used oils for biodiesel production is:
White Grease (cnt/lb) 50.98
Yellow Grease (cnt/lb) 45.00
Tallow (cnt/lb) 49.50
Soybean Oil (cnt/lb) 55.52
These prices specify the price per pound in cents. To uncover the true cost per gallon you need to multiply the cents price by the number of pounds within a gallon.
With the escalating price of feedstock oil what can you do as a bio-diesel manufacturer to control expenses? The resolution is straight forward, plant your own biodfuel feedstock. It’s well known Soybean Oil, Corn Oil & Canola Oil are common food crops and compete for space on our dinner tables, but did you realize there is an alternative option? Camelina Oil. What’s Camelina you ask?
Camelina has long been grown in European countries for thousands of years for cooking oil. It grows fastest in a cool, arid environment and is well-suited to a small grains rotation crop.
The plant grows 1-3 foot tall and produces pale green foliage and tiny plant seeds. Camelina is cold and drought resistant, needs minimal fertilizer and can be harvested with conventional farming equipment. It is broadcast or drilled at the end of fall, winter or spring, and straight combined in early July. Camelina has a 90day growth cycle and current crop yields range between 500 to 3,000 pounds/acre. The most popular planting methods used are broadcast seeding and direct drilling. Sowing rate with each method is 5 lbs seed/acre.
Camelina is an oilseed crop in several Countries in europe (Austria, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Poland, and the USSR) and a feedstock for biodiesel production.
Pure Camelina is cold-pressed oil produced from Camelina Sativa seeds. It is among the best sources of omega 3 essential fatty acids you can find.
Although Camelina oil has been used for thousands of years, it is just now getting the notice it deserves for its usage as a biofuels oil resource.
It is also a safer source of omega 3 than fish oils. (Fish oils are at risk of mercury contamination). Pure Camelina oil is better than fish oil.
Camelina is definitely an under-utilized crop and it provides market options for the demanding Biodiesel marketplace. The technique of oil extraction is cold pressing. The additional benefit of using Camelina oil is it’s similarity to soybean oil for cold flow attributes, which is an important factor for cold climate biofuel producers. The seeds contain 29-45% oil and 23-40% protein and are high in omega 3.
Traditional high, water-use crops such as cotton, corn and wheat have to have roughly 30 inches of rain fall or more to generatte acceptable yields. Camelina is a low- water use alternative crop with numerous marketing opportunities.
Therefore the very next time you have a board meeting to go over ever rising cost of biodiesel feedstock oil, advocate farming of Camelina, your board members and investors will most likely be grateful for the suggestion.
Do you need tallow ? Here’s a source to add to your list. Find out more about biodiesel biofuel.. This article, Growing Cost with Bio-diesel Used Cooking Oil & Farming Camelina Resolution has free reprint rights.