Grease is the word.

• Position: Triangle

Every biodiesel producer faces the same economic reality: The biggest expense is the raw material to make fuel. So the industry keeps seeking cheaper alternatives--different grains, fats and, most recently, used cooking oil. But that's a slippery slope. Ten years ago, when what became Pittsboro-based Piedmont Biofuels Industrial LLC started, restaurants gave it away to get rid of it. Now they lock their grease traps, the contents under contract, the spoils of bidding wars. That's why Piedmont, with 10 employees and $2 million in revenue last year, teamed up with Danish enzymes giant Novozymes A/S to pioneer a process to use cheaper, more abundant types of grease that restaurants still throw away. "It opens the world to a whole new set of feedstocks that enzymes can handle," Piedmont President Lyle Estill says.

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Piedmont and Novozymes, which has its North American headquarters in Franklinton, began a pilot project two years ago to develop technology utilizing enzymatic catalysis, which breaks down grease into fuel at lower temperatures and with less water. It culminated in June with a ribbon cutting in Pittsboro at the first plant to use the process commercially. The technology won't increase Piedmont's capacity--it's puny compared with the average for plants, according to 2008 figures from the National Biodiesel Board. But larger companies have taken notice. Decatur, Ill.-based agribusiness giant Archer Daniels...