He started making fuel out of fryer grease in his garage. Now the biggest oil companies in the country buy what his team makes. Put him on your stage and watch the room wake up.
Joe Renwick has spent 18 years proving that the stuff food plants pay to get rid of is worth real money. He has the trucks, the tanks, the rail cars, and the scars to show for it. He tells the story fast, passionately, and with the numbers to back it up.
Keynotes
Panels
Workshops
Plant-floor lunch-and-learns
Based in South Carolina. Will travel anywhere.
BioJoe Talk
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Joe launched the company in 2008 on credit cards and a loan against his own truck. The market crashed weeks later. In 2009 the federal biodiesel subsidy disappeared and every other biodiesel plant in South Carolina shut down. Joe worked fourteen months without a paycheck and kept his open. When he talks about surviving, he is not quoting a book.
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17 million pounds of food waste turned into compost. One customer went from three landfill loads a day to three a week. Four million pounds of renewable-fuel feedstock sold in a single month. Joe puts the real numbers on the screen and explains exactly how they happened.
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High energy, no filler, and he genuinely loves this stuff. Organizers who have booked him say the same thing: people were still talking about his session at dinner.
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Most people who speak about waste talk about getting rid of it. Joe talks about what it is worth, who will pay for it, and how a plant turns a cost line into a rebate check.
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South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance Innovator of the Year 2025. Carolina Recycling Association Recycler of the Year 2022. Featured on NPR, SCETV, and in Biodiesel Magazine.
Food and beverage manufacturers
Water, wastewater, and environmental professionals
Sustainability and organics-diversion groups
Biofuel, bioenergy, and renewable-fuel industry events
Universities, business schools, and entrepreneurship programs
17,000,000+
pounds of food waste turned into compost
4,000,000
pounds of renewable-fuel feedstock sold in one month
83%
fewer landfill trips for one customer
2.3 million
gallons of fuel produced in one year (2022)
100+
college interns trained through the Green Entrepreneur Program
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locations, family-owned since 2008
Innovator of the Year
2025
South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance
Best Places to Work in South Carolina
2022 through 2025
SC Biz News
Recycler of the Year
2022
Carolina Recycling Association
#1 Fastest Growing Small Company in South Carolina
2022
SC Biz News
Green Business of the Year
2023
Environmental Education Association of SC
Biomass Project of the Year
2018
South Carolina Biomass Council
Boilerless Technology™, developed under a NASA Rural Area Development Program grant
The first woman-owned biodiesel company in the United States
Helped launch the Bengal Biodiesel Lab at Blythewood High School, the second high school biodiesel lab in the nation
Joe Renwick grew up in Winnsboro, South Carolina, in a family that owned businesses. He played football at The Citadel, ran a landscaping company, worked in banking until the 2007 collapse, and sold pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment until that job vanished too.
Then he started reading about biodiesel. A few weeks and a few hundred dollars later he was making fuel in his garage from waste cooking oil collected at a restaurant in Augusta. It ran his truck. In 2008 he and a former teammate launched Midlands Biofuels with borrowed money and a loan against that same truck.
The timing was terrible. The financial crisis hit weeks later. In 2009 the federal biodiesel subsidy was cut and every other biodiesel plant in South Carolina closed. Joe worked fourteen months without a paycheck and kept his open. His line about it: “It’s not luck. It’s perseverance, planning and positioning.”
Joe and his team developed and trademarked Boilerless Technology™ with support from a NASA rural development grant, built their own collection containers and equipment, and grew from making fuel into handling the whole waste stream: used cooking oil, animal fats, grease trap and DAF cleaning, depackaging and certified destruction of expired and recalled product, and composting through sister company ReSoil.
In 2016 the company became Green Energy Biofuel and opened a plant in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 2018 it added a rail-served facility outside Aiken, South Carolina. Today Green Energy Biofuel serves customers across South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, sells renewable-fuel feedstock to the largest oil companies in the country, and has turned more than 17 million pounds of food waste into compost.
Joe co-owns the company with his wife, Dr. Beth Renwick, an emergency medicine physician and the company’s majority owner. Their team has voted Green Energy Biofuel one of the Best Places to Work in South Carolina four years running.
Joe also started the Green Entrepreneur Program, which has trained more than 100 college interns from The Citadel, Clemson, and the University of South Carolina, and helped Blythewood High School launch the second high school biodiesel lab in the country. He has said he would hire any student who comes out of it.
Tell us about the event and we will get back to you within two business days.
Joe’s team will get back to you shortly. If it is urgent, call (803) 718-6323.
Prefer to talk? Call (803) 718-6323 or email info@gebiofuel.com.
GE Biofuel Winnsboro
310 South Congress Street
Winnsboro, SC 29180
Phone: (803) 718-6323
GE Biofuel Main Office
2110 Main Street
Warrenville, SC 29851
Phone: (803) 718-6323
GE Biofuel Tennessee
1754 Alcoa Highway
Knoxville, TN 37920
Phone: (865) 622-7474
ReSoil Compost
1692 Brazell Rd
Elgin, SC 29045
Phone: (803) 766-1692
Green Energy BioFuel LLC © 2026. Made with love by 44Watts.
