Two Area Companies Turn Cooking Oil Into Biodiesel Fuel
Published Feb 23, 2009
Used cooking oil is being converted into fuel for diesel-powered vehicles.
Some companies in the Northeast Tennessee Valley region are turning the energy crisis into an economic opportunity.
Nu-Energie LLC, with headquarters in Blountville in Sullivan County, Tenn., produces biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil. In 2008, Nu-Energie secured an agreement to collect 5 million gallons of used cooking oil from 20,000 restaurants annually, which constitutes 5 percent of the used cooking oil in the nation.
Hawkins County native Brian Hullette founded the company in early 2007, and as of September 2008 it had 13 employees.
“I felt this was the right way to help get our country back on track so we can stop relying on foreign oil,” Hullette says. “A lot has happened in the short time since the company began.”
Indeed, Nu-Energie recently built a 12,500-square-foot facility in Hawkins County’s Phipps Bend Industrial Park that will allow the company to expand its annual processing capacity in the future to 15 million gallons. Furthermore, the company plans to add 10 facilities elsewhere in the southeastern United States. “We’ll be offering turnkey facilities to people wanting to start up a biodiesel company,” Hullette says.
Similarly, from a 45,000-square-foot plant in the Hickory Flats Industrial Park in Lee County, Va., Synergy Biofuels LLC planned to begin producing biodiesel from waste cooking oil by the end of 2008.
“We will offer a free service to restaurants by collecting their waste cooking oil for free, and we’ll turn that oil into biodiesel and sell it to fuel distributors, power generators and whoever wants to purchase it in bulk quantities,” says Ankit Patel, founder and chief executive officer. “We hope to give back to the local community by allowing farmers and individuals to come fill up in our parking lot once or twice a week.”
As of September 2008, Synergy Biofuels had six employees.
Initially, the company plans to produce about 3 million gallons of biodiesel a year, eventually ramping up to about 8 million gallons annually.
Story by Jessica Mozo
Photo by Stephen Cherry
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