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Sequential biofuels portland1/13/2024 The low-carbon fuels standard is also being considered in a Senate bill, SB 5412, sponsored by Sen. If Washington joins Oregon, California and British Columbia with a fuel-blend mandate, Hartwig said “it definitely reinforces our decision.” “That is really based on the low-carbon markets that are established and the potential for the (clean fuel) standard in Washington.” “We have put it out to the market that we are going in this direction,” says Kent Hartwig, an Iowa-based REG senior manager who testified for the bill in Olympia. Though REG and Phillips are basing their decision on current markets, the prospect of increased demand in Washington could nudge their decision toward a “yes” if the Washington legislation passes. It would turn out so-called renewable diesel, which it now produces from used food oils, animal-fat wastes and canola at a similar Louisiana plant and sends to West Coast markets like California. REG spokespersons say a decision to proceed with the Whatcom County plant is due later this year. (Photo courtesy of Renewable Energy Group) The REG biodiesel plant in Grays Harbor County is the second-largest producer of biodiesel in the United States. But some Republicans question whether the state should intervene in energy markets, suggesting it could cause consumers to pay more at the pump. The answer may turn out to depend on what the Washington lawmakers do about House Bill 1110, which won committee approval from majority Democrats on the House Environment and Energy Committee during just the second week of the 105-day legislative session. REG and Phillips 66 have announced plans to build a similar renewable fuel plant near Bellingham, in Whatcom County, and the companies are still calculating whether to move ahead later this year. The Renewable Energy Group plant employs 40 people in Hoquiam, a town hard-hit by the one-two punch of a withered timber industry and the opiate addiction crisis. This industrial facility stood out as the second-largest biodiesel producer in the nation last year. ![]() And it could be a good thing for Washington’s economy.Īn hour to the other side of Olympia, a maze of industrial pipes feeding storage tanks, each the size of a small apartment house, looms over Grays Harbor on Washington’s central Pacific coast. You might say the used oil flows toward the money. In other words, in Oregon - as in California and British Columbia - the used cooking oil commands a hefty premium over its price in Washington, where there is no such requirement. There, lawmakers have required progressive reductions in the amount of fossil fuel allowed in gasoline and diesel, hitting a 10 percent drop by 2025. SeQuential collection driver and driver supervisor Chad Peters scrolls through his list of stops for the day outside Din Tai Fung in Tukwila.īut here’s the catch: The biodiesel-to-be that is being sucked into Peters’ truck, like much of what’s collected in Washington, will help reduce climate-wrecking carbon emissions not in the Evergreen State but across the border in Oregon. Here’s why: The cooking oil he is collecting into his 1,500-gallon vacuum truck will taste a second life as biodiesel, an alternative fuel made partially of vegetable oil or animal fats that has a distinctly lower carbon impact than traditional diesel made solely of petroleum, meaning it also doesn’t pollute as much when it’s burned. Peters isn’t thinking much about what is going on an hour’s drive south at the Legislature in Olympia - but his bosses are. I can tell whether the oil is reused or not. “That’s how I choose what restaurants to eat at - the quality of the oil. They’ve got good oil,” he says to SeQuential Marketing Manager Rachel Shaver. The SeQuential Pacific Biodiesel vacuum truck driver wears his long, salt-and-pepper hair in a ponytail to keep it out of the way as he wheels one of the restaurant’s two plastic oil collection vats out into the chilly, spitting rain. TUKWILA - On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Chad Peters is picking up oil from the Din Tai Fung restaurant at Southcenter Mall.
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