🎶The times they are a-changin 🎶

And certainly, this is true with the global biofuels industry. Although I don’t cover the biofuels market as much as renewable chemicals, I witnessed the fast growth of the US biodiesel market back when I was reporting about fats and oils pricing and supply/demand since 2000. By 2004, there were 25 biodiesel plants in the United States, and by 2009, the National Biodiesel Board listed over 200 manufacturers on its Web site.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was intended to reduce the need for imported petroleum, required government fleets to purchase alternatively fueled vehicles. When the Department of Energy decided that biodiesel use could substitute for a portion of a fleet’s vehicle purchase requirement, biodiesel became an attractive option for some fleet operators. In 2007, the combination of historically unprecedented high petroleum prices and a $1.00/gallon federal excise tax credit in the United States caused the biodiesel industry to expand greatly. This was aided by mandates in states like Minnesota, which required that 2% biodiesel be used in all diesel fuel sold within the state.  Meanwhile, the National Renewable Fuel Standard, released in 2010 further required petroleum companies to buy alternative fuels in proportion to their sales of traditional petroleum fuels.

By 2013, the US biodiesel industry’s production exceeded 1 billion gallons.

Back then, most bio-based diesel is produced through the transesterification of fats and oils. In the USA, biodiesel meets ASTM D6751 and is approved for blending with petroleum diesel. Nowadays, most of the investments in bio-based diesel are in the hydrotreatment of vegetable oils – also called HVO especially in Europe, but more known as renewable diesel in the USA. Renewable diesel meets ASTM D975 specification for petroleum diesel.

There are several differences in terms of properties and manufacture between these two bio-based diesel but looking at the chemical industry’s point of view, the transesterification of fats and oils produces the co-product glycerine (a very important product in the oleochemicals market), while HVO processing has no glycerine co-product but produces naphtha, propane and other hydrocarbons which are typical building blocks of the petrochemical and fuel industries. Please don’t also get me started with the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) which is beyond my scope. By the way, renewable diesel can also now be produced via gasification, pyrolysis and other biochemical and thermochemical technologies.

So back to my news, this is why the National Biodiesel Board decided to change its name to Clean Fuels Alliance America. The trade association now represents the entire biodiesel, renewable diesel and SAF supply chain including producers, feedstock suppliers and fuel distributors. Clean Fuels receives funding from a broad mix of private companies and associations, including the United Soybean Board and state checkoff organizations.

Just for fun and for my throwback Tuesday, here is a presentation I did in 2005 that is probably more applicable now than before.