Conference Gives Homebrew Biodieselers a Home

John Davis

CollectiveBiodieselConf1Of course, most people who follow renewable fuels are familiar with the National Biodiesel Board‘s annual conference and expo. It’s a great venue for some of the bigger commercial ventures, but for those who might be brewing up a few gallons in their garages, there’s a place just for them. This article in the Aspen Business Journal talks the Collective Biodiesel Conference, returning to Colorado this year and attracting some of the nation’s leading experts, researchers and innovators in the biodiesel industry.

[T]he conference … was first held in 2006 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden grew from a very humble beginning.

“There was no real conference for ‘home-brewers’ [of the fuel],” said Graydon Blair, one of the conference founders. “It was just a bunch of people on the internet talking about biodiesel.”

Blair, an expert in small-scale biodiesel brewing and president of Utah Biodiesel Supply, has been involved in the industry since 2003. He said the original conference grew from an idea he and three other biodiesel enthusiasts shared because the only other annual conference catered to larger commercial businesses.

“We wanted to share ideas on a small scale,” he said. “We wanted people to come to a central place and share ideas about biodiesel and what it does, and let others who are doing it share their stories.”

That tradition of sharing ideas continues Aug. 15-18 at Colorado Mountain College in Breckenridge. More information is available here.

Biodiesel, conferences