A new biodiesel plant in Northern Iowa is closer to cranking out the green fuel.
The 3-million-gallon-a-year Growth Design Corp. refinery planned for near Forest City, Iowa, as we told you about last month, could break ground next month, according to this story from KIMT-TV and would the first-of-its-kind facility in Iowa:
It will use what’s called “the MCGYAN process,” which can convert waste products like restaurant grease and leftovers from ethanol plants into biodiesel in a matter of seconds…
Growth Design Corp. CEO Byron Tweeten and Vice President of Operations and Planning Bill Luetscher have spent the past two years making their dream a reality in Forest City…
Luetsher says aside from its speed, the recently developed MCGYAN process, which uses a metal oxide reactor to convert different waste products into fuel, offers several advantages over the traditional way of producing biodiesel.
For one it takes up a lot less space.
“This is something that is going to be a 3500 square foot building, it’s going to be a very small footprint architecturally it will blend in with the environment,” Luetscher said.
Tweeten says they’re also looking at ways of using waste like methane gas to provide electrical power to the plant. He says it’s an effort to close their renewable energy loop.
Check out this video of the project below.