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Biodiesel producers approved for ‘green’ energy park
By Derek Hodges
As national leaders quibble about the potential energy crisis facing America, two local men are doing something about it.
Sam Gray and Alan Begley have founded Smoky Mountain Biodiesel, and will soon locate their business at the Jackson County Green Energy Park at the former county landfill site in Dillsboro. They hope to begin operations there in early summer. In exchange for the space, the company will pay the county a lease that will increase from $400 the first year to $420 the second year and $450 the third.
Biodiesel, a fuel produced from vegetable oils, can be used just like petroleum-based diesel fuel in all diesel-powered vehicles.
“Our company’s fuel can run in any engine that’s equipped for diesel,” Gray said.
To produce biodiesel, the company will utilize used or unused vegetable oils. Those oils can be acquired from two sources – restaurants and farmers. Both could see benefits from working with Smoky Mountain Biodiesel, Gray said.
Most restaurants pay to have their grease traps, which hold used cooking oil, cleaned. Gray and Begley will offer to clean those traps for free in exchange for the grease. Not only will restaurant owners save money, they may also be able to get their traps cleaned more often.
Local farmers could realize a cold-season profit by growing rapeseed, which can be used in the production of biodiesel. Rapeseed is easy to grow and is low impact on farmland, Gray said.
To produce fuel, oils are combined with methanol, commonly called wood alcohol. Methanol is a liquid version of methane gas. According to Gray, the company may use some of the methane gas being pumped from the buried landfill trash to produce methanol, thus eliminating another biodiesel production cost.
Since biodiesel is made from crops that can be replanted every year, it is considered a renewable energy source.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration studies have shown biodiesel to be biodegradable. That means biodiesel spills would not produce environmental disasters like spilling petrodiesel. The same studies also identified biodiesel as non-toxic, finding it to be 10 times less poisonous than common table salt.
OSHA officials have classified biodiesel as non-flammable and say production of the fuel is safer and less likely to cause fires or explosions than petrodiesel. That flame resistance also makes the fuel safer in a crash than traditional diesel.
According to research by officials at the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, biodiesel also has other environmental benefits, including:
• It reduces emissions of carbon monoxide by 50 percent and those of carbon dioxide by 78 percent.
• Since biodiesel contains no sulfur, it eliminates a vehicle’s sulfur emissions.
• It reduces particulate emissions by 65 percent, which can reduce cancer risks from those emissions by 94 percent. That could also reduce the amount of smog in the air, making breathing easier and improving visibility. Also, since the fuel contains less particulate matter than petrodiesel, it actually helps clean engines that have run on traditional diesel.
• It has an energy yield 3.2 times greater than fossil fuels, which means vehicles use less and go farther.
According to Gray, the production of biodiesel yields only two by-products – glycerine and animal fat.
The animal fat comes from grease used at some restaurants that must be processed out from the vegetable oils.
Both waste products have useful purposes, Gray said. Glycerine can be used in making soap and for increasing the time firewood burns. Animal fat could be placed into anaerobic digesters, in which bacteria would break down the lard and produce more methane that could be used to help power the Jackson County Green Energy Park.
Despite all its benefits, the fuel does have some drawbacks.
The fuel weakens the fuel lines and clogs the fuel filters of some vehicles, particularly those produced before 1992, that have been run on petrodiesel. However, that problem can be easily remedied with some modifications, Gray said.
The fuel can also congeal in fuel systems at temperatures below 40 degrees. While scientists are working on a remedy, the problem can be avoided by mixing petrodiesel with biodiesel during cold weather, Gray said.
Though Smoky Mountain Biodiesel will begin as a two-person venture, Gray and Begley have plans for expansion.
“We’d like to be big, but it’s going to take a county effort,” Gray said.
County and school leaders have expressed an interest in purchasing the fuel. Both the low production costs and the fact that there is no fuel tax on biodiesel at this point mean it could be sold for less than traditional diesel, so the switch may be economical, Gray said.
In addition to providing fuel for vehicles, Smoky Mountain’s product could also be mixed with kerosene and used for heating oil. That would produce a cleaner-burning fuel that would typically burn longer than standard K-1, Gray said.
While Gray and Begley acknowledge they may face an uphill battle in convincing people to switch to biodiesel, they believe they can take on America’s major oil companies one tank at a time.
“It’s the small guys that are going to win in this battle,” Gray said. “We could have biodiesel producers in every county in Western North Carolina. I think that would be a great day.”
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