Sustainable Oils Receives Approval for Camelina Meal in Livestock Diets; Boost for Camelina Biodiesel
29 September 2008
Sustainable Oils, a company focused on the development of camelina for biodiesel production, has received approval from the Center for Veterinary Medicine, a department of the Federal Drug Administration, for the use of camelina meal in the diets of feedlot beef cattle and growing swine up to 2% of the weight of the total ration. Camelina meal is a by-product of camelina oil extraction.
Sustainable Oils is a joint venture between Targeted Growth, an agricultural bioscience company, and Green Earth Fuels, a vertically integrated biodiesel company, and was launched in late 2007.
Camelina sativa (false flax) is a member of the mustard family, and is typically grown on marginal land. A distant relative to canola, it requires minimal water and can be harvested with traditional equipment. It is not competitive with traditional food crops, but instead creates a food plus fuels scenario.
This is an important step in the process of developing a strong, sustainable market for camelina production. Opening up the livestock feed opportunities for camelina meal provides a market for the most significant by-product of camelina oil production.
—Steve Sandroni, production and logistics manager, Sustainable Oils
The meal has protein levels of 40% or more, and is similar to soybean meal but offers the added benefit of being high in Omega-3 fatty acids, according to Sandroni.
Sustainable Oils is leading the formation of an industry coalition working to obtain “Generally Recognized As Safe” certification from the Food and Drug Administration so all producers can sell camelina meal. Sustainable Oils is now one of only two companies who have approval to sell camelina meal. A nutritionist knowledgeable about the use of camelina must be consulted in developing rations using the product.
Almost any energy crop is also a food crop or a food crop could be grown instead. Would the people in Haiti who are eating mud be better nourished by ground up camelina seeds or are they poisonous. Even a quick check would show that there is not enough crop area or forest area to meet the US liquid fuel needs by a factor of four or five at least. There is not any form of energy that is truly renewable. Wind comes from solar energy; and billions of pounds of of hydrogen were destroyed to make enough energy to run a single windmill for a year at that distance. If the Human population were reduced to a few million, then it would be possible for biofuels to supply the needs. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 29 September 2008 at 03:23 PM
Every little bit helps. The question is not about providing all the energy we need; ethanol from marginal crop land can provide a small portion, of the portion used by autos. Just what we need - many small but significant sources of usable energy.
As far as the solar energy goes, of course non-renewable has no meaning - by any rational definition.
Our usage does not create any consumption or extra emission of energy by the sun nor have anything to do with its life time of 10 billion years.
Of the sun's radiation of 40 million, trillion, trillion megawatts, the earth intercepts about 0.00000075%. That's about 150 billion megawatts, most going to waste, but if that were a large percentage of the sun's output we would still not affect its lifetime.
Posted by: tOPPAtOM | 29 September 2008 at 10:55 PM
As a useful animal feed grown on marginal lands, this little understood crop needs further trial. It currently appears to meet several requirements. A 30 % oil content, residual animal protein and suitabiity for marginal land and high yeild on marginal lands indicate it should be a valuble addition to the toolkit.
Rotation of crops can add value beyond the immediate and similar processing requirements to stablemates and secondary uses are valuable characters.
Posted by: arnold | 01 October 2008 at 08:55 PM
100 Percent Renewable Jet Fuel from Camelina?
Yep...
http://www.biobasednews.com/node/18411
Posted by: Gary | 07 October 2008 at 12:08 AM