Largest U.S. biodiesel plant set to open at Grays Harbor port

Largest U.S. biodiesel plant set to open at Grays Harbor port    Seattle-based energy firm Imperium Renewables is set to celebrate the opening of its Imperium Grays Harbor biodiesel facility.
   Located at the Port of Grays Harbor, the 12-acre facility is able to produce 100 million gallons per year of fuel, making it the largest biodiesel production facility in the United States. In addition to production, the facility is capable of storing up to 17 million gallons of finished biodiesel and the organic oil used to produce it, called feedstock.
   Biodiesel is a broad term for any fuel made from domestic, renewable resources. The main component of most domestically produced biodiesel is soybean oil. The Imperium Grays Harbor facility will primarily use a mix of canola oil grown in Washington, as well as oil from soy and other crops.
   The Grays Harbor site includes eight main tanks, each with a 2 million gallon capacity, and two reserves tanks rated at 500,000 gallons. The 10 tanks are connected by a complex network of more than 70,000 feet of piping.
   The facility is regarded as “feedstock agnostic,” an industry term meaning it can create biodiesel from numerous different feedstocks — even simultaneously.
   It was designed to incorporate process and manufacturing lessons learned at Imperium’s original facility, the 5 million-gallon-per-year Seattle Biodiesel plant. The firm chose the Port of Grays Harbor for its strategic connections to rail, road and water transportation for both inbound raw materials as well as outbound biodiesel fuel.
   Port officials and Imperium representatives signed an agreement to build the $40 million facility in May 2006, and construction began a month later.