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Measure could restart idled biodiesel plants

Iowa has adequate infrastructure to produce a significant amount of the diesel fuel used in the state, however very little of its capacity is currently being used to produce the renewable fuel.

“We have the ability to refine over 30 percent of our diesel usage with products that we grow in Iowa,” says Randy Olson, executive director of the Iowa Biodiesel Board.

Olson says Iowa’s under usage of biodiesel production infrastructure is one reason he’d like to see passage of legislation providing for a five percent biodiesel blend in every gallon of diesel fuel in the state. Polling indicates support for the legislation among two-thirds of Iowa’s voters.

“Iowans are a very self-reliant bunch, and we like to grow and refine and use the products in our state that we’re capable of [using],” Olson told Brownfield at the National Biodiesel Conference in Dallas, Texas, last week, “both to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve the environment.”

AUDIO: Randy Olson (6 min. MP3)

The state B-5 legislation successfully passed out of an Iowa House Ways and Means Subcommittee a couple of weeks ago.

Olson estimates that only 15 percent of Iowa’s biodiesel production capacity is currently being used awaiting greater demand, which could be boosted by passage of the B-5 measure.

One recently closed Iowa biodiesel plant is to be dismantled and sent to India, which causes Olson to consider the potential irony.

“Wouldn’t it be a real shame,” asks Olson, “if a dozen years from now, for instance, we were importing fuel from India that was made with equipment that we once had in Iowa?”