Fueled by Food

By COLIN HICKEY
Staff Writer

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc

VASSALBORO -- Randy Bean wants your grease, the more the better, and it won't cost you a cent, but it might bring you a cleaner, safer and more affordable world.

That's the potential of Green Bean Bio-Fuel, the startup biofuel production company that Bean started inside an old steel warehouse about a mile and a half off U.S. Route 201.

Green Bean Bio-Fuel is the only company in the state producing biofuel for commercial sale, processing each week about 2,000 gallons of biofuel from the waste fryolator oil -- collected from about 200 restaurants and food preparation businesses in Maine and New Hampshire.

That biofuel is then sold chiefly to businesses operating trucks that used to be powered by diesel fuel.

Beth Nagusky, who heads the state's Office of Energy Independence and Security, confirms Bean's exclusive status.

"Randy is unique for now," she said. "There isn't anybody else (in the state) doing what he is doing right now."

Put 100 percent pure biofuel in your truck and your compression-ignition engine should work just fine.

Waterville resident Craig Lefebvre, who owns a mobile paper-shredding business, is one of Bean's happy customers.

He has run his three trucks on biofuel for the last two months without a single hiccup, and when his shredders on wheels are on site chewing away, their emissions are customer friendly: instead of noxious fumes, you get a sweet fragrance.

"It is clean burning," Lefebvre. "It is a barbecue grill."

Made from renewable sources, biofuel -- methyl esters is the chemical name -- has lower emissions than petroleum, is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

Switching to biofuel also makes the United States less dependent on foreign oil, a goal the U.S. government is increasingly touting given the instability in the Middle East and the concern caused over the skyrocketing price increases in oil in recent years.

For a time this summer, Bean's selling price of $2.63 a gallon for biofuel was more than 40 cents cheaper than the price for diesel. That price advantage has since closed significantly, but biofuel, especially if its production increases significantly, could at the very least serve as a control on oil prices by providing competition.

"I'm not a greenie, per se," Bean said, "but when you read about all the benefits of this fuel to the atmosphere as far as the greenhouse effect and everything, this stuff is awesome."

Bean will be upping his biofuel production dramatically before year's end. He plans to have a replacement factory open in about two months that should boost his annual yield from about 100,000 gallons to about 835,000 gallons.

"Our big thing the next four or five years is to introduce biofuel in a good manner," Bean said, "and let people choose whether they want to buy it. If we make a good product at a good price, I think they will (buy it)."

RESTAURANT WINDFALL

Liberty Square Restaurant in Winslow, like most eateries that fry food, ends up with a lot of grease to get rid of at the end of the day.

Disposal used to be an expense. Then Bean's Commercial Grease appeared.

Nowadays Liberty Square uses the collection side of Randy Bean's biofuel operation exclusively, and the expense has disappeared -- Bean picks up at no charge. Owners, Dan and Missy Hussey, couldn't be happier.

"It is an awesome program," Missy Hussey said. "It used to cost us $100 a month (to get rid of the waste oil)."

Bean figures he saves the food industry he serves -- he has about 200 customers -- about $200,000 a year, ranging from $80 to $100 a month for the small independent restaurant, to $10,000 or more for a company that has a chain of restaurants.

Yet more exciting is the potential Bean's operation could have for both the environmental and economic health of Maine as a whole.

Peter Arnold, a renewable energy expert with the Chewonki Foundation, a Wiscasset-based educational group, has been making biofuel for several years, although not for commercial sale. In fact, he is the one who helped teach Bean the process.

Arnold said if Maine were to make use of its used fryolator oil, vegetable crop and considerable wood resources, the state would have the potential to produce slightly more than 200 million gallons of biofuel annually, or about one third of Maine's current diesel need.

"What Randy is doing is the initiation of Maine jumping into the fuel business in a way we have never been able to do before," he said, "because we can make biofuel in Maine. This is the beginning of it."

How quickly -- if ever -- the state gets to peak biofuel production depends on the value placed on biofuel and the price for traditional fossil fuels, Arnold said.

Another key, he said, is making the public aware that biofuel is an option and that it can have clear economic benefits for the state, as well as environmental benefits global in scope.

Biofuel simply recycles carbon dioxide that already is present in the vegetable source, Arnold said, and thus, unlike fossil fuels, places no additional strain on the environment.

Replace diesel with biofuel, he said, and you reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thereby help combat global warming.

"I think the easy answer (for creating a larger demand for biofuel) is more education and ready availability (of biofuel)," he said, "and they kind of go together. Fuel stations will want to carry this fuel when they are assured that people will buy it."

PRODUCTION PROCESS

Bean had heard about Arnold's biofuel operation at the Chewonki Foundation, so he was quick to seek out Arnold for help when he began to explore being a producer himself.

Arnold was happy to oblige.

"He came out and took us through what they had been doing," Bean said, "and he has followed us in everything that we have done from that day on."

The process of turning waste fryolator oil into biofuel -- called transesterification -- actually is less complicated than you might suspect.

At Bean's facility, the first step is to heat 1,000 gallons of waste fryolator oil. Once heated, the oil is transferred to a second tank, where a catalyst -- made in a third tank from methanol and caustic soda -- is gravity-fed into and blended with the oil using an industrial-strength mixer.

This mixture is then transferred into one of three holding tanks and left to settle for at least 24 hours. During that process, a largely benign byproduct called glycerin settles to the bottom, while the nearly pure biofuel floats above.

This biofuel then goes through a few more filters and, finally, through a centrifuge, which essentially is a high powered spin cycle, that filters out any remaining particles.

In his new factory, Bean will follow the same process, just on a much larger scale.

Nagusky, of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, applauds Bean's progress but adds a note of caution.

"The point I'd like to make," she said, "it that it will be very hard to meet all our energy needs from in-state resources unless we reduce demand. So the first thing we need to pursue is conservation and efficiency. Those are always going to be the first priority, and renewable energy sources will be second."

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com