Biodiesel plan sees a payoff in weeds

TimesUnion.com (Albany, NY)

Albany company gets financing to produce fuel from unwanted plants

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor
First published: Friday, June 6, 2008

ALBANY -- Could weeds be the next big source of biodiesel?

An Albany-based startup believes so, and is lining up millions of dollars in financing to construct plants in Fulton, Oswego County, and Hampton, Washington County.

Innovation Fuels Inc. already operates a plant in New York Harbor that makes biodiesel from nonedible oils -- animal fats and used vegetable oils -- producing 40 million gallons a year.

The 1-year-old company also has acquired a biodiesel production facility being developed at the Port of Milwaukee.

But Innovation Fuels also is looking at other plant sources -- mustard seeds, pennycress and camelina -- that could produce the oils for biodiesel, said chief executive John Fox.

"They grow in northern regions, and grow in the shoulder months," he said in a phone interview Thursday. The plants could be interplanted with corn and soybeans, and harvested with the same equipment. "You can do two plantings a year."

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