Pacific Biodiesel to help project that finds crops for local fuel

The Maui News
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

HONOLULU - Maui-based Pacific Biodiesel will take part in a $100,000 demonstration project to test the potential of biodiesel from crops that can be grown in Hawaii.

For the test, the feedstock will mostly be nuts and beans gathered from fields and roadsides, including kukui or castor bean. Kelly King, director of marketing at Pacific will take part in a demonstration this morning at the Oceanic Institute to show how the raw oil is expressed.

Pacific Biodiesel's laboratory will refine and test the output to see how well it matches to industry standards.

Deborah Jordan, the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Division director, will award the grant money to Honolulu Clean Cities.

King says the consortium made a bid for enough money to do some farming, but it got only enough for the test project. She is hopeful a last-minute move in the state Legislature may get some money to grow experimental crops.

Some farmers are experimenting with other crops, such as oil palm and jatropha, so unlike the castor beans, those will not have to be collected in the wild. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and Jatropha curcas are two of the highest yielding oil crops grown, primarily in tropical and subtropical areas.

Pacific Biodiesel already has experience with palm oil, having bought a cargo of spoiled food-grade oil a few years ago.

"We really need to get going" on the local production of fuel crops, King said Monday. She said she hopes the current demonstration will have some results within eight to 12 months.

Other partners will be Aloha Green, the University of Hawaii at Hilo College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management, Oceanic Institute, the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center and Grace Pacific.

They will work with the West Coast Collaborative, which represents a partnership among leaders from federal, state and local government, businesses and environmental groups in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico. All are committed to reducing diesel emissions along the West Coast.