On Tuesday, May 15, Biodiesel Industries in partnership with NextEnergy, celebrated the ground-breaking of a biodiesel production facility in Detroit's New Center. The 13,000-square foot facility will also be used for research, public outreach and education by the California-based company. This is their sixth U.S. plant, and it will have the capability of producing 10 million gallons of biodiesel per year.
Significantly, the plant will be feedstock-neutral, meaning that it can make use of feedstock such as corn and soybean as well as switchgrass, rapeseed, sunflowers and crude, refined and recycled vegetable oils.
The building was designed by Albert Kahn Associates and will be built by DeMaria Building Company, both Detroit-based companies with experience in alternative energy design-builds.
Russell Teall, founder and president of Biodiesel Industries, credited the city of Detroit for its welcoming efforts to help make the project happen. He said that while many reporters have asked him, "Why Detroit?" he sees it as the "center of the automotive universe" and answers, "Where else?"
His efforts to promote biodiesel stem from what he calls "The Three E's" – environment, energy and economy – and he believes that true sustainability exists when "you take a good environmental idea into a commercial project and make it economically sustainable."
The plant will employ 20-25 initially and construction is expected to be complete before the end of the year.
Source: Biodiesel Industries of Detroit, LLC ground-breaking
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
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