BioFuelBox sells out of biodiesel from first plant

It took San Jose, Calif.-based BioFuelBox longer than planned to get its first renewable fuel plant off the ground, but it’s now reaping the benefits.

The company’s Vice President of Marketing Richard Reddy told the Cleantech Group today that its plant is now running on the host site of Pleasant Valley Biofuels in American Falls, Idaho. The plant was installed in January, but modifications from the prototype delayed its launch.

BioFuelBox came out of stealth last year and has scaled its technology, which turns waste fat, oil and grease (FOG) from wastewater into what it says is a clean burning, low sulfur premium biodiesel that meets industry standards for road use.

The company says the FOG comes to it for free and would otherwise end up in landfills or municipal waste water treatment plants.

“Making a fuel from a pure clean material like vegetable oil is not that complicated,” Reddy said. “But making a fuel from a watery, contaminated waste stream is very complicated. And what we have been able to do is prove we can take these waste streams and create high-quality, on-road transportation fuel.”

On-road fuel, which is more pure than off-road fuel used in the construction industry, for example, is currently selling for north of $3 per gallon. As of early August, Reddy said his company has been selling its fuel at market prices.

The company hopes this plant is the first of a network of “bio-refineries in a box,” containerized facilities located near or where the waste is produced.

The first plant, owned and operated by BioFuelBox, is expected to produce 1 million gallons per year of biodiesel. Financial details were not disclosed.

“This was just step one. Our mission at BioFuelBox is to deploy as many of these plants as quickly as possible. We can’t make them fast enough,” he said.

Reddy said the company has “sold out” of the plants it can produce for the next two years. BioFuelBox expects to open about 10 new plants during that time frame, with a few under contract in the southeastern United States.

Reddy said Pleasant Valley was an ideal partner because it had previously established connections to waste materials suppliers, necessary permitting in place, and also agreed to buy every gallon BioFuelBox produced.

The waste material is delivered to the plant by truck from local sources such as agriculture companies and the restaurant industry, which generates waste trap grease.

He said BioFuelBox views itself more as an on-site waste remediation company than a fuel company, although it does sell biodiesel back to its customers or on the open market.

And while BioFuelBox has Pleasant Valley lined up to buy all the fuel, it’s actually negotiated a contract for the fuel to be sold to Flying J, a private truck stop company that operates 270 stops throughout the United States as well as refineries.

“Any of the 270 truck stops can use all of what we can produce,” Reddy said.

In 2007, BioFuelBox raised $9 million in Series A funding from Element Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson (see Batteries charge up with VC cash). Reddy said due to the economic crisis, his company opted to tighten its belt and survive on its first round.

“We hit revenue off of our A round, which is pretty spectacular,” he said, without disclosing how much revenue.

The company is in discussions about raising a Series B round for an undisclosed amount.

The waste-to-fuel industry has been around for more than a decade, but as Reddy said, “it’s littered with dead bodies,” or companies that haven’t survived. BioFuelBox still thinks it has some lead time on its patented technology over its competitors.

Last year, Houston-based GreenHunter Energy converted a waste-oil refinery into a biodiesel refinery intended to not only produce the most gallons per year in the United States, but also to produce the highest grade B100 biodiesel per year—and all from non-food feedstock (see My biorefinery is bigger than yours).