By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

CINCINNATI, Ohio — Camelina is basically a weed … yet, Great Plains-The Camelina Co. stated it will be using this weed to fuel jets by next year.

Great Plains-The Camelina Co. is a renewable fuels energy company founded with the purpose of manufacturing and marketing biodiesel produced from Camelina satvia, the next generation of biofuel crop, said CEO Sam Huttenbauer. An annual, camelina is a member of the mustard family and grows in many areas.

“It was cultivated during the Middle Ages in Europe and used as lamp oil,” he said. “It’s a non-food crop. It currently grows well in northern areas, although with the proper breeding – which we’re capable of – we will develop lines that will do well all over the United States.”

The company has entered into an agreement with the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota to use its technology to produce advanced fuels from Camelina.

“In joining with the EERC, which has great depth of technology, we are going to be able to run this oil through a normal refinery,” Huttenbauer said. “Camelina will provide for an identical replacement of the traditional petrochemicals with the technology that EERC has pioneered.”

The EERC has developed a feedstock-flexible process that can utilize various crop oils to produce combinations of jet fuels, diesel, gasoline and propane that are identical to petroleum-derived fuels, enabling direct substitution with these fuels and providing renewable options across the spectrum of fuel needs.

Great Plains has studied the science and agronomy of camelina for more than 10 years and for the past three years, has contracted with growers in the U.S. and Canada to produce the crop.

The company is establishing a growing base, oilseed crushing and production facilities to handle the production of biofuel derived from camelina. It will increase capacity as more acres are grown.

“We are a vertically integrated company,” Huttenbauer said. “We go all the way from the science of the seed, the breeding, and we are capable of transgenetically altering that if need be because we have our own laboratories and scientists. We go all the way to the pump.”

A partner with INEOS Enterprises, one of the leading biofuel producers in the world, Great Plains already has about 15 million road miles of vehicles driven using camelina to produce biodiesel, but the EERC technology will maximize the biofuel potential for the crop, Huttenbauer said.

Camelina is being used in test plots in Ohio right now, he said; Great Plains has its corporate headquarters in Cincinnati.
“We are interested in the Midwest,” he said.

“Camelina may become a double crop for farmers there. We’re hoping to have other test plots in the Midwest soon.
For information, visit www.camelina company.com