Ed Booth, director of operations for Newport Biodiesel, pumps kitchen waste oil from cans outside of the Moorings Restaurant, Newport. The cooking oil is then converted into fuel oil to run engines and heat buildings.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires Frieda Squires

Rhode Island has its first biodiesel production facility, with the opening last month of Mason Biodiesel, in Westerly. And a Newport company is close behind.

Phil Mason, president of Mason Biodiesel, opened his 6,000-square-foot facility July 12 and plans to produce about 3 million gallons a year.

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In Newport, Nat Harris and three others have banded together to form Newport Biodiesel, and have constructed a 6,000-square-foot processing facility on Connell Highway. Newport Biodiesel is awaiting approval of its fuel mix.

(Other companies have also expressed interest in making biodiesel in Rhode Island, but are not as far along.)

For Mason, the idea of opening a biodiesel plant came from his son, Tyler, who lives in Vermont and works for a solar panel installer. Mason, whose main business is restoration in the aftermath of fires, said he was attracted to “the whole idea of renewable energy, plus working on the business aspect of it.”

Last year, he visited biodiesel facilities in Vermont and the Netherlands to learn more about it. He has run dozens of test samples of his soybean-oil-based fuel, which has been approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials.

Mason is producing pure biodiesel, as opposed to the typical blend of 80 percent diesel, 20 percent biodiesel. The Newport group is seeking approval of its pure biodiesel fuel as well. Both will act as wholesalers.

Commercial biodiesel manufacturers must register their product with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and meet the biodiesel standards set by the American Society for Testing and Materials. A biodiesel company also must register with the Internal Revenue Service because the product is subject to commercial road taxes, said Jenna Higgins, a spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board, a trade organization based in Jefferson City, Mo.

Mason plans to sell his biodiesel to Rhode Island service stations and home-heating companies. He said he’s been testing the fuel in three of his cars and two trucks since March.

“I wasn’t excited until we ran it in our trucks and they ran quieter, smoother, [and] longer between maintenance, and this is all brands across. … It’s been incredible,” he said.

One hurdle Mason said he expects to have to overcome is educating the public about biodiesel. But he believes there will be greater demand once people become more familiar with it.

Nat Harris, production manager of the Newport venture, says he thinks the interest is already there.

“As far as we can tell, there’s a huge demand,” he said.

Harris said there is a lot of local interest in marine use of biodiesel, and there is a long waiting list for the biodiesel heating oil cooperative run by People’s Power & Light, a Providence environmental organization.

Newport Biodiesel expects to open this summer and eventually make 500,000 gallons a year. Harris said he considers the company a biodiesel “microbrewery.” Once a week, the four partners, all Newport residents, collect about 1,000 gallons of leftover grease from more than 30 local restaurants to be processed for biodiesel.

The business, Harris said, will start out selling biodiesel for boats and home heating oil, eventually branching out to on-road vehicles by late summer or early fall.

The production facility has received city zoning approval, and the company is working on getting permits from the EPA, the state Department of Environmental Management and the Fire Department, Harris said. The biodiesel also needs to be tested by the American Society for Testing and Materials.

The other members of Newport Biodiesel include operations manager Ed Booth, a retired Jamestown postmaster; marketing manager Myles Standish, an architect; and business manager Robert Morton, a retired manager for the Science Applications International Corp.

“We all decided it was time to take it to a bigger level and take it to a commercial scale,” Harris said. “Being where we’re located, there’s plenty of waste vegetable oil around.”

Harris, who used to work for a nonprofit organization that finances environmental and marine-education programs for children, said he became interested in biodiesel because of its environmental aspects and saw it as a way to personally make a difference, as well as save money on fuel.

His education in making biodiesel came mostly through trial and error, getting his information off the Internet. Last year, he made the fuel in his garage for six months and tested it on his car and pickup truck, and he used biodiesel to heat his house.

The Norman Bird Sanctuary has used Newport Biodiesel’s fuel to heat a building with a library and conference center and power the tractor for cutting fields, moving snow and digging holes. And the sanctuary hopes to heat four buildings with the fuel this fall.

Joseph McLaughlin, the sanctuary’s director of properties, said the biodiesel made it easier to breathe while doing farm work. He used to get headaches while using the tractor. With biodiesel, McLaughlin said, smoke and headaches have subsided.

What has impressed McLaughlin the most about using biodiesel is “that it burns so much cleaner than diesel, and that you’re reusing a waste oil.”

“It’s a local resource,” he said. “It’s not coming from far away.”

mlee@pressofac.com