How Are You Contributing to a Greener Tomorrow?

We were the first in both the U.S. and Canada to build commercial-scale facilities to convert used cooking oil and animal fats into biodiesel, beginning in the 1990’s… before there were government incentives to do so.

In 2013, we took a giant step forward, launching production at our new Diamond Green Diesel plant in partnership with Valero Energy. DGD is the largest facility in North America to convert these recycled cooking oils and animal fats into renewable diesel.  While both biodiesel and renewable diesel are efficient and cleaner alternatives than fossil-based fuel, renewable diesel has physical properties that sets it apart from its biodiesel sister. The biodiesel production process retains oxygen, making it prone to solidification in cold weather and subject to separation, stability issues and algae growth. Renewable diesel production removes the oxygen, creating a fuel almost identical to fossil diesel but with greatly reduced carbon emissions. Because of this, it can be dropped directly into the diesel pipeline for distribution, has no cold-flow issues, burns even cleaner and more efficiently than our already clean and efficient biodiesel, and could even run a big rig across the country at 100% pure renewable with no loss of power or performance – though doing so wouldn’t be practical in today’s world.

Both biodiesel and renewable diesel qualify as low carbon additives for states mandated to increasingly reduce their vehicular carbon emissions going forward. Our DGD facility recently doubled production from 160 million to 275 million gallons annually, and just approved plans to more than double that capacity to 675 million gallons in 2021.