One Lake Havasu City citizen is the co-inventor of an environmentally friendly reactor used to produce bio-diesel fuel and has recently signed on to create the parts for a bio-diesel fuel plant currently under construction in Kentucky.
The reactors are built in his Havasu-based machine shop.
Alan McGrevy, of Four Rivers BioEnergy Company and Havasu C.N.C. Machine and Fabrication LLC, says bio-diesel fuel is an alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel that is produced by using renewable sources like alfalfa, soy, corn, canola, palm oil, animal fats or even waste oil from restaurants.
“Soy bean oil is a choice product right now,” McGrevy said. “It is the easiest to produce and provides the best results. The price of soy was inexpensive, but has increased because of demand.”
The ingredients, however, would be nothing if it were not for an invention that produces bio-diesel fuel.
McGrevy helped invent and design the technology for a reactor ideal for mixing biodiesel fuel. He is also the sole manufacturer and has often been called “the brains behind the bio-diesel units,” he said.
The patented technology is a spinning tube within a tube, or STT System, structured with a miniscule gap between the two. The high-speed spinning motion increases productivity time while using less energy resources during operating and less water resources during cleaning, McGrevy explains.
Existing mixing methods typically employ big containers and a process that could last hours or even days to mix. The STT, McGrevy says, mixes 40 times faster than those methods and allows far less use of dangerous chemicals.
The STT is fairly compact unit in comparison, which further increasing the saving of energy resources to operate or clean the reactor. It is a computer-controlled apparatus that electronically meters exact amounts of each component entered into the mix and can create an exact end product from one batch to the next.
The STT can produce up to 35-gallons per minute and up to 50,000 gallons a day, depending on the size, McGrevy said.
At the 437-acre Calvert City, Ky., plant, four reactors are expected to collectively produce 50 million gallons of biodiesel fuel per year. It is slated to begin producing in 2010. The nearby location of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway allows for machine parts and bio-fuel ingredients to be easily shipped to the Kentucky location.
McGrevy was a mold maker and a toolmaker in England for much of his life. His co-inventor status is hinged upon his toolmaker intuition of simply “polishing it up” the first time he came in contact with the reactor prototype, he said. “All of a sudden it was a better product,” he said.
“The unit could easily be adapted for wood products, paint, food products or pharmaceuticals,” McGrevy said.
Biodiesel fuels are classified based on the amount of bio-diesel that is introduced to standard diesel fuel. For example, B100 is pure biodiesel, McGrevy explained. “In a cold climate, it could freeze up,” he said. Others are classified as B5, B15 and B20, and means respectively, 5, 15, or 20 percent bio-diesel fuel and 95, 85, or 80 percent standard diesel.
The downside is the biodiesel can be more expensive, as much as 7 cents per gallon, depending on where it is purchased. However, in the long run, it is less expensive because the engine will last longer and will need less maintenance.
Biodiesel, by composition, provides more lubricant to engines. It runs cleaner, quieter and is more environmentally friendly, McGrevy says.
Copyright © 2009 Todays News Herald
