Green Star sells enough reactors to South Africa to produce 900 million gallons of biodiesel
Green Star Products will sell 90 biodiesel reactors to South Africa. The company, which made news recently by building a biodiesel plant out of recycled cargo containers, entered into an agreement with De Beers Fuel Limited. Each reactor is capable of producing 10 million gallons of biodiesel each year. If all 90 reactors are operating at full capacity, the South African annual output of 900 million gallons would be four times the entire U.S. production in 2006. Each reactor weighs two tons and is shipped by air freight to South Africa. The current De Beers plant uses sunflower seed oil as feedstock but algae will be the next source. According to the company, algae can produce 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre. Soybeans are limited to 48 gallons per acre.[Source: Green Star]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Felix 12:16PM (2/09/2008)
I love the idea of using algae to produce biodiesel, but after considering the carbon footprint (cost) to manufacture and air-freight 90 two-ton reactors to South Africa (180 tons, yikes!), how long would the reactors need to operate in order to get back to carbon neutral?
Considering the relatively poor 'net' carbon reduction using conventional crop-based biofuels, I rather think it would take a long time. :-(
Still, I applaud Green Star's efforts.... would be nice though if they could manufacture their units LOCALLY vs. incurring shipping costs (carbon-wise).
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