Vermont biodiesel plant to open soon

SWANTON, Vt., March 22 (UPI) -- Final construction is being completed at Biocardel Vermont LLC, Biocardel's first U.S. biodiesel plant.

The plant is expected to open at the end of the month, said plant manager Stephen Daigle.

The Swanton, Vt., plant will import soybean oil from nearby Quebec farms and convert the oil, as well as canola oil, to biodiesel fuel. The only byproduct is glycerol, which is purified and sold to manufacturers.

Biocardel's biodiesel fuel plant doesn't use water and leaves a minimal environmental footprint, according to Daigle. The process of converting organic oils to biodiesel fuel produces no emissions and the fuel used in diesel engines greatly reduces emissions from traditional petrodiesel-consuming engines, Biocardel President Pierre Migner said.

The biodiesel will be sold to local fuel blenders and then blended with petrodiesel and distributed to gas stations. One of the benefits of biodiesel as opposed to ultra-low sulfur diesel is that it can easily be incorporated into the existing infrastructure and brought to the gas pumps without degrading the quality of the fuel, Migner said.

Once operational, the plant is expected to produce about 4 million gallons of biodiesel annually; it is expected to increase to 12 million gallons in its third year of operation.