Contact Tony Janowiec
VP of Operations
Phone: (608) 827-2970
tjanowiec@bestenergies.com
Madison, Wis. September 25, 2008. Governor Jim Doyle stressed that research and development are important in developing domestic energy, but only by commercializing innovative technology will this country achieve clean, renewable domestic energy. The need for domestic energy is now.
He announced that BEST Energies has been awarded a $500,000 grant and a $500,000 loan through the Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund to implement biodiesel plant technology at the Cashton, Wisconsin facility. The technology will enable the plant to use 100% crude corn oil from ethanol plants (CCOE) as its feed stock.
The benefits from implementing the technology will be realized in months not only by the Cashton plant, but also by Wisconsin ethanol companies that generate CCOE as a by-product. CCOE is not suitable for food. As a biodiesel feed stock, they will obtain a higher market price for their CCOE. They also benefit by reducing natural gas usages in their ethanol plants and improving the protein content of distillers grains, another by-product, which are used as animal feed.
The technology, which has been developed by BEST Energies, achieves the best balance between capital expense, operating costs and feed stock conversion while integrating the treatment technology into the biodiesel plant. Dr. Jim Schreck, BEST’s Chief Technology Officer said “Our research and engineering team has applied their extensive practical experience in the petrochemical industry to solve unique problems presented using CCOE feed stock. The solution is elegant. Energy use is minimized and we get high conversion of the feed stock to biodiesel.”
Norm Balmer, President and CEO of BEST Energies, noted that “The eyes of the biodiesel and ethanol industry are watching carefully. There are hundreds of millions of gallons of CCOE that could be available from the domestic ethanol industry. The industry is just waiting for proof that CCOE can be converted to quality biodiesel.”
BEST Energies licenses its proprietary biodiesel technology.