Chevron to build one of the nation's largest biodiesel refineries in Galveston, TX

[Doondoo]

Next month, the world will get a glimpse of what Big Oil can bring to the fast-growing alternative fuels movement when a new biodiesel plant here, backed by a major U.S. oil company, opens for business.

The plant, which can produce 20 million gallons a year of diesel fuel made from soybean oil, is among the largest of its kind in the nation and is expected to soon grow bigger. But what's more notable is that it is partly owned by Chevron Corp., the San Ramon, Calif.-based oil giant.

With the investment, Chevron has become one of the first major U.S. oil companies to move out of the laboratory with biofuels and into a factory that actually produces them, a path that biodiesel industry leaders hope its peers will follow.

Chevron's 22 percent stake in the $10 million plant, also financed by other institutional and private investors, is tiny compared with what it will spend to develop, say, a deepwater oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, which could run into billions of dollars. But the project, which looks like an oil refinery in miniature, represents a change in thinking at one of the world's largest energy firms.

"Over the last couple of years, our company has come to the point of view that there is more global demand for energy coming than we know how to meet the way we've always done things," Rick Zalesky, Chevron's vice president of biofuels and hydrogen, said during a recent tour of the Galveston plant. "So oil and gas will continue to be the major source, but is that enough? And we've concluded no."



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4578216.html

[kestrel91316]

1. From the "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em" department

[GliderGuider]

2. When will this madness end?

Here are my not so happy thoughts on biofuels, including biodiesel. We should really contain this insanity, but I suspect that's wishful thinking. In a time of crisis, no idea seems to be too dangerous to pursue.