Finland, Vietnam launch fish fuel project

Espoo, Finland-based VTT Technical Research Center, the largest applied research organization in Northern Europe, launched a three-year project to produce biodiesel from waste generated by a Vietnamese fish processing plant.

For the project known as ENERFISH, VTT is working with organizations in France, Germany, the UK and Vietnam to construct a biodiesel facility next to the Hiep Thanh Seafood JSC processing plant in southern Vietnam, which produces 120,000 kilograms (264,555 pounds) of processed fish waste daily.

The fish waste is currently sold to the feed industry.

The ENERFISH project has a total budget of €5 million ($6.3 million USD), more than half of which comes from EU funding. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland has provided another 10 percent of the budget to construct the demonstration equipment for small-scale testing.

The biodiesel project is expected to be completed in 2011. It is also expected to result in new cooling and freezer systems for the Hiep Thanh Seafood JSC plant that can reduce energy costs by 20 percent.

Earlier this year, Finland's state-controlled Neste Oil announced plans to build a $1 billion biodiesel facility in the Netherlands (see Neste Oil building $1B biodiesel plant). Last year the company announced plans to build an $810 million biodiesel facility in Singapore that is expected to be operational in 2010 (see Finland's Neste Oil heads for the top in biodiesel).

Other southern Vietnamese companies in the Mekong Delta region such as Minh Tu Ltd. and Agifish have been producing biodiesel off and on since 2006 from catfish fat. Agifish, Vietnam's second-largest exporter of catfish, has estimated that a kilogram of catfish fat could produce over a liter (0.26 gallons) of biodiesel. The fat has been too expensive to use for biodiesel production at times however because other local companies buy it for export.

The Mekong Delta market is estimated to consume 5 million liters of diesel daily.

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• New year money goes to biofuels
• VeruTEK completes new green chemistry remediation project
• Indian company lets drivers opt-in for electric battery

View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed