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Extreme Eyes Diesel Retrofit Market


Sunday, March 8, 2009 10:00pm PDT
By JAHMAL PETERS
Contributing Writer

Refining vegetable oil into a biodegradable diesel-engine fuel is one of the latest trends in alternative energy, and Extreme Green Technology, Inc., has slid right into the market. The Corona-based company is one of the state's newest fully licensed and operational biodiesel production and distribution facilities.

Extreme Green Technology Inc., also known as Extreme Biodiesel, primarily uses waste vegetable oil to create a cleaner-burning form of fuel that can be used in almost any diesel engine without modification.

Bob Neuberger is co-owner of Extreme Biodiesel in Corona, which makes biodiesel processors for individual use and has opened a production and distribution facility for truckers.

The company finalized all the permitting in January, said Rick Carter, chief financial officer for Extreme Biodiesel. "Within the week we'll be up to manufacture 2,000 gallons (of biodiesel fuel) a day and then build it up to 4,000 gallons a day."

"Our goal over the next six months is to get to 6,000 gallons a day," President Joe Spadafore said.
Extreme Biodiesel started as a company in 2003 designing processors mainly for individual end-users. In the past 24 months, the company has sold more than 150 units in the United States, Canada and Africa.

Extreme Biodiesel plans to expand its facility and expects production to level out at about 14,000 to 22,000 gallons of biodiesel fuel a day within a year.

With a current staff of six employees, Spadafore expects that number to increase significantly as the company's operations expand in the 12,000-square-foot facility.

"It'll be driver-intensive; we will have tankers going in and out," he said. "It will be driver employments, and employment for the operation of the facility."

Extreme Biodiesel has a co-op with 150 members who can fill up at the facility at 1560 Maple St. in Corona.

"Circle City Towing in Corona is one of the company's largest clients," Carter said. "Construction and expansion of the facility is mostly done in-house, but," Spadafore said, "the company will hire a contractor when needed."

Howard Electric in Temecula set up much of the wiring and Corona-based CJ Suppression installed the sprinkler system. The appeal of biodiesel stems from its ability to blend with diesel fuel or outright replace it in a fuel tank with few prerequisites. This is a boon to truckers who face the costly retrofit of older diesel engines with after-exhaust emission controls.

Extreme Biodiesel is conducting tests with diesels from Cabo Trucking in Los Angeles to determine whether a 50 percent biodiesel blend will reduce emissions sufficiently to offset the need for retrofitting. "If the 50 percent biodiesel works, truckers won't have to pay for the (emission controls), which are $15,000," Spadafore said.

The mandatory retrofit instituted by the California Air Resources Board ordered the retrofit of all trucks manufactured from 1992 to 2007. "A 2000 (model) truck that is susceptible to this still has 20 years of life left," Spadafore said. "Trucks from '92 to 2007, you're talking about a lot of trucks on the road."

"Engine modifications needed to burn biodiesel fuel are minimal. The only real prerequisite is if you use biodiesel for the first time it's going to reduce the carbon build-up to the fuel filter and that might need to be changed," Carter said.

The fluctuating price of diesel fuel -- which spiked last fall and threatened the stability of independent truckers -- is another reason Extreme Biodiesel is optimistic about expansion. "That's one of the main reasons we decided to do the big refinery with gas prices going up like they were," Carter said.

Extreme Biodiesel gets its vegetable oil from restaurants and makers of salad dressing. It plans to expand its production from waste vegetable oil to algae; if successful, the amount of biodiesel produced would expand greatly. "Soybean oil can produce 220 gallons of oil per year per acre," Carter said, "Algae can produce 66,000 gallons of oil per acre, per year; we would be able to produce more oil than we could ever use."

"There's nothing else to do with algae, and since it's self-sustaining and we're not taking any excess land. The algae company Extreme Biodiesel partnered with for the experiment remains confident," Spadafore said.

 

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