Large-scale Commercial Production of BDF from Waste Cooking Oil Starts in Toyama

On November 22, 2006, Toyama BDF Co. performed an opening ceremony for its factory and service station in the Eco-Town Industrial Park of Toyama City in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. The factory produces biodiesel fuel (BDF) from waste cooking oil. Its producing capacity, 960 kiloliters per year, is one of the largest for commercial operations of its kind in Japan.

The company was granted two subsidies: the Ministry of the Environment's subsidy for curbing CO2 emissions and Toyama City's subsidy for building eco-town facilities. Using these subsidies, the company built a factory to produce BDF through methyl esterification of waste cooking oil collected from supermarkets, food factories and school meal centers. The produced BDF is sold at the company's own service station as a substitute to diesel oil for diesel-powered vehicles.

The company started selling BDF in January, 2007, and for the time being is limiting sales to municipal garbage collection vehicles, diesel cars and heavy machines in the factories of the industrial park. After gaining sufficient experience, the company will gradually expand sales to others. The per liter price is set at five yen (about 4.2 US cents) below the market price of diesel oil. The factory manager, Mr. Hisao Ishiguro, said, "Operators are quite satisfied with BDF, because exhaust gas from BDF is much cleaner than that of diesel oil and they can breathe more comfortably than before even when operating heavy machines inside factories or buildings."


Posted: 2007/02/13 09:56:47 AM
Japanese version