Kansas firm boosting biodiesel production fourfold

The firm is relocating to a space in the Sedgwick Industrial Park at 250 Industrial Drive where the will be able to refine up to 1,000,000 gallons of the non-petroleum based combustible every year.

“We make biodiesel from oils – used cooking oil primarily,” president Ben Healy told Carrie Rengers of The Wichita Eagle. “We are producing probably… about a quarter-million gallons a year currently.”

Biodiesel is different from the converted diesel engines various touring bands are fond of and can be used in standard diesel engines and even mixed with petrodiesel. It is usually made from vegetable based oils but can also be made from animal fats.

Healy expects the new facility to entail hiring a few more employees as well a number of new and unimagined headaches, plus the need to find more cooking oil to refine. That’s something he hopes can be provided by Wichita’s many restaurants.

It also means they are going to have more fuel to distribute so he is hoping to work out contracts with the convenience stores chains in the region. In Kansas, they tend to be known as Quik Trips or Kwik Shops.

“That would be a goal of ours,” Healy said.

The totality of the company’s production currently sold right within the county. The increased output of the new plant may require the firm to market to a wider area.

Healy Biodiesel will share the new building with an associated concern called W.B. Services. They build collection tanks for restaurants to store spent cooking oil. These tanks function so that “ they don’t ever have to dump grease again,” he stated.

The tanks have a unique anti-theft feature insuring that not even a drop of vegetable oil has ever been stolen from their collection units.

When it comes right down to it, there is energy all around us. The trick is simply learning to gather and utilize it in a more efficient and greener manner. Healy Biodiesel is one firm boosting that worthwhile goal.