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One of the nation’s largest biodiesel plants is up and running today as Louis Dreyfus Commodities opened the doors of its 88-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant near Claypool, Indiana (pictured above).

The opening gained the praise of the company owner, the state’s governor, and of course, the National Biodiesel Board:

Governor Mitch Daniels and Robert Louis-Dreyfus, owner of Louis Dreyfus Commodities, addressed the attendees. “Claypool is a strategic centerpiece for our company’s future,” said Louis-Dreyfus. “This plant affirms our century-old practice as a market innovator. We are grateful to be a partner with the state of Indiana and the local community in this new venture.”

“Louis Dreyfus is helping to meet what we hope will be America’s continued growing demand for renewable, cleaner-burning biodiesel,” said Larry Schafer, NBB political senior advisor. Schafer attended the grand opening event today. “It is adding valuable refining capacity to our nation’s fuel supply and replacing foreign oil with environmentally friendly, domestically produced fuels.”

To give you an idea of just how big the plant is, the average biodiesel plant produces only about 9.5 million gallons a year. This is about NINE TIMES that big!

The opening comes during an unprecedented amount of growth for the biodiesel industry in America. The National Biodiesel Board says overall national production of biodiesel has gone from about 25 million gallons in 2005 to an expected more than 300 million gallons by the end of this year.

Just when you thought thieves had run out of new things to steal, now the old grease from restaurants has become the latest pilferable item.

Officials are blaming the home-made biodiesel craze for making criminals out of people who just might not have realized that’s it’s wrong to take that used cooking oil. Some probably good-intentioned folks have been taking the old oil to make new, green fuel.

This article in the Cincinnati Enquirer says the problem has gotten so bad that companies such as Griffin Industries, Inc. – a grease, animal by-product waste, and grocery scraps recycling company – has had to hire folks such as former cop Larry Findley to stop the crime:

Grease thieves will often sneak behind restaurants at night, break the locks on containers and spill grease everywhere, said Findley, who has worked for Griffin Industries for 16 years. Thieves will often make off with 1,500 pounds of grease in one haul and sell it for between 10 and 15 cents a pound, Findley said.

“This is a recent phenomenon. These people are the worst kind of thief,” Findley said. “They don’t know they are stealing. The Internet is replete with how to make this stuff. They have no idea what they are doing.”

And officials say these thefts are costing the restaurants as the criminals are trying to take as much grease as fast as they can and end up spilling a lot of it on the ground in the process… creating an environmental hazard.

So the next time you think you see the Hamburgler behind that fast-food chain, it might just be an eco-thief. C’mon folks, let’s be honest about how we get our feedstocks, please!

Scientists in India are experimenting with a method that could make biodiesel production a whole lot more efficient.

Instead of heating sunflower oil and methanol for several hours, researchers at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology are running the mixture over a bed of fungal spores. This article on the Wired Science web site says an enzyme produced by the fungi turns it into biodiesel… without spending energy to produce the fuel:

Typically, biodiesel is made by mixing methanol with lye and vegetable oil and then heating the brew for several hours. This links the methanol to the oils to produce energetic called esters. Unfortunately, heating the mixture is a huge waste of energy, and a major selling point of alternative fuels is efficiency. An enzyme called lipase can link link oil to methanol without any extra heating, but the pure protein is expensive.

Instead of purifying the protein to run this process, the scientists found the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae produced it on its own. So, they’ve turned that fungus into easily used pellets and are now well on the way to producing energy without spending energy… and that’s the whole idea, right?