How much does it cost to build a biodiesel plant ?

This is an often searched for term on the internet believe it or not as people look toward the future and realise that the demand for biodiesel is on the increase.

The most common form of producing biodiesel is to combine vegetable oil or animal fat with methanol in the presence of sodium hydroxide. Ethanol can be used but methanol is less expensive.

The biggest cost that you will encounter when setting up a biodiesel plant is the cost of the actual vegetable oil. Because waste vegetable oil is also used in the production of soaps and detergents, in the future both industries will be competing for the same amount of vegetable oil produced and thus production costs will rise.

For an eye-opening table showing the predicted total costs of prduction have a look here.

The actual cost to build a biodiesel plant obviously rests on a number of variables. This year a new biodiesel plant is scheduled to open in Dexter, Missouri. The size of the plant is intended to be 6000 square feet and they hope to have it producing 3 million gallons of biodiesel every year! That's a helluva lot of biodiesel. They plan to employ 12 people and, naturally have it operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And so... the answer you've been waiting for the expected cost of this particular biodiesel plant? A cool $5 million. Best start saving now...