Well, just as the NBB predicted, the Senate and House delays on reinstating the federal tax credit for biodiesel has caused the biodiesel industry to grind to a halt. I got a call yesterday from another company in NC that is going out of business. That makes three total within 6 months.
We’re still here. We’re still producing biodiesel every day, although in much less capacity than before. As far as I can tell, we’re the only biodiesel plant in North Carolina that is still actively producing truckload quantities of biodiesel. Our price is still roughly the same, about $.60 per gallon higher than petroleum diesel fuel.
North Carolina could help by adding additional tax incentives to biodiesel like many other states already do, but so far, nothing appears to be happening at the state level. We’re hearing rumblings that the US Senate may be getting something approved in the next several weeks. What we’re hoping for is a multi-year tax incentive that is retroactive back to January 1st. Anything less than that puts us right back in the same situation next year and will only further to inhibit the growth of renewable fuels like biodiesel.