White Mountain Biodiesel, located in North Haverhill, New Hampshire, has announced it has begun a plant expansion. Once completed, in about two years, the plant will have been expanded by 10,000 square foot and added 1,186,000 gallons of additional processing and storage tanks. When the expansion goes online, the biodiesel production will increase from 3,000,000 gallons per year to more than 16,000,000 gallons per year, and become the largest biodiesel facility in New England.
According to a press statement, the improvements will be made using proprietary technologies developed by White Mountain over the last nine years of operations. The planned improvements are also expected to provide significant cost reductions as a result of increased plant efficiencies. Presby Construction has been hired to complete the new building addition, and the tank installation, piping, pumps and electrical improvements will be completed the White Mountain team.
As part of the expansion, the company has begun the purchase of its own fleet of tankers and pedal trucks to enable sales of blends as high as B99.9 to retail customers within New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. White Mountain is working directly with Suntec pumps and other manufacturers to develop a reliable pump configuration to enable home heating systems to function reliably on higher blends of biodiesel. All the trucks acquired will be pre 2007 models without DPF or DEF systems allowing them to be operated on high biodiesel blends. These vehicles will also be used to pick up used cooking oil from New England collectors and for the delivery of glycerine and other waste products to New England digester facilities. The company says it is also exploring opportunities with Caterpillar to supply generators capacity of running B100 to supply the plant’s entire electrical needs.
In addition, White Mountain says the company has begun to take legislative action in the state to include biodiesel as part of the state’s Renewable Fuels Portfolio. The company has also submitted its first set of documentation to obtain its BQ-9000 designation.