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Entrepreneur puts home on line for biodiesel: Mortgage went to seed crusher to aid alternative-energy industry(Spokesman-Review, The (Spokane, WA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 27--Tim King talks nervously about the home he built years ago in the woods above Newman Lake. And he should. King and his spouse, Margaret, have, literally, bet their home on the latest version of the next big thing – biodiesel. They have taken out a second mortgage to help buy a machine that presses rapeseed into canola oil, which can then be refined into biodiesel. For all the hype whipped up about the alternative fuel recently, it has come down to this in Eastern Washington: a couple borrowing against their home to turn the promise of biodiesel into reality. The Kings are partners in the Carbon Technology Transfer Center LLP, a business that works with farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to foster compliance with conservation programs. Tim King has long been an advocate of so-called green technology advances and accompanying government initiatives. He also knows that building a new alternative-energy industry requires risk-takers, so he decided to get involved. He paired the $300,000 mortgage money with an additional $550,000 from Rapid Finance, a lender he called a "quick-finance type," to buy the oilseed crusher from Cambra Foods, a large Canadian company that has been pressing canola oil for years. The purchase was completed in March, King said, and he's hiring a millwright to disassemble the crusher and ship it south from Lethbridge, Alberta, to the Spokane area. As he talks about the business venture, King wipes his palms on his blue jeans. "Nervous?" he says. "More than just a little." King has to repay the half-million dollars he borrowed – plus 15 percent interest – within two years. It's the only money he could find without strings. Most lenders demanded some sort of oversight role that King worries could have stripped his project of its mission – opportunity for Eastern Washington. "Margaret is not real happy about all this, but she is supportive," King said. King bought a crusher so big that it can conceivably be split into four independent units and set up in four different communities. He anticipates forging partnerships with communities that can then tap a new low-interest loan pool established by the Washington Legislature in its recently ended session. The loaned money would help pay back King's initial outlays and also go toward purchasing seed. "I'm doing this because I want it to work for the farmers," he said. "I don't want to sell them out." King worked for the USDA for 25 years on climate change initiatives before taking an early retirement package after the election of President Bush. He started Carbon Technology to continue working closely with farmers and landowners. At first, seed may have to be purchased from growers out of state, but King said he is willing to pay 12 cents a pound for canola seed – a price he thinks pencils out for local farmers, who could harvest upward of 2,000 pounds an acre. He doesn't anticipate problems with finding appropriate sites for the crushers. The crushing process involves a double-screw press to extract the most oil without using Hexane, a chemical commonly used in crushing operations. The leftover seed meal could be sold to dairy farms and the vegetable oil shipped to biodiesel refineries. Eventually, King envisions more refineries will be built in Washington. The deal should move Eastern Washington biodiesel from the concept column to the product column, alongside Seattle Biodiesel, a refinery founded by airline pilot John Plaza and now controlled by venture capitalist Martin Tobias. King said he's ready for the next step. "I think the time is right," he said, "I guess we'll see." |