Pacific BioDiesel

Pacific Biodiesel, Inc. was born in 1996 as the answer to grave concerns over potential environmental and health problems resulting from restaurant grease clogging the Central Maui Landfill. Robert King, owner of King Diesel on Maui, who was contracted to maintain the generators at the Landfill, decided to do something about it. Searching the Internet, he hooked up with Daryl Reece of the University of Idaho, who had helped develop a method to process discarded cooking oil into a clean-burning fuel for diesel engines. With no outside financial assistance, King and Reece formed Pacific Biodiesel, Inc. and built the first biodiesel plant in the Pacific Rim, located at the Central Maui Landfill.

The small scale, economically feasible Maui operation was recognized by biodiesel authorities nationwide as one of the first commercially viable biodiesel plants in the U.S. In 1997, Japanese businessman Soichiro "Sol" Yoshida contracted Pacific Biodiesel to design and build a similar plant for his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Nagano, Japan. (That plant now processes used cooking oil from 60 restaurants, producing biodiesel that completely powers one KFC restaurant as well as many cars, trucks, and industrial engines.)

Shortly after the completion of the Nagano plant, Pacific Biodiesel began to attack an even larger problem for the Landfill – grease trap waste. With the addition of a custom designed grease trap oil processor, PacBio was then able to supply its own boiler fuel, again while diverting 140 tons of grease trap oil from the Landfill each month. This biofuel product is available for considerably less than petroleum diesel fuel.

In 2000 Pacific Biodiesel built a biofuel plant in Honolulu. The plant has a capacity of 25,000 gallons per day of grease trap waste and 1500 gallons per day of biodiesel.