Sustainable Transportation
(How I learned to love cholesterol) 

“In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”  This is how some of the wiser members of our species—the Iroquois—formulated the principle of sustainability.  It is worth considering that principle as you pull into your local fueling station to score your next gasoline fix.  You think the outrageous price is a consequence of Katrina and Rita?  In part, that’s true.  But the fact is, in the future, the petroleum from which gasoline is refined isn’t going to meet the demand, and increasingly that future is now.  That’s how we’re depriving the next seven generations of options we currently enjoy.  So if we want to take the Iroquois seriously, we need to begin considering renewable fuels.  

For several years now, Eric Henry, who lives in Burlington , has been producing and consuming a petroleum substitute.  Eric collects used vegetable oil from various restaurants in the area, takes the oil back to his small manufacturing plant, filters it, lets the water settle out, and then converts it chemically into something called biodiesel.  This he pours into the fuel tank of his VW Golf diesel car.  If you follow Eric’s car, and if you navigate by smell alone, you might well conclude you’re in pursuit of a mobile McDonald’s.  None of that horrible black, smelly smoke we all associate with diesel-powered vehicles.  Pure French fries!  And while Eric happens to collect used oil from restaurants, this is not the only biodiesel feedstock.  He could just as easily begin the manufacturing process with “new” vegetable oil if he wished.  But the used stuff is cheap, since the restaurants are only too happy to unload it.  The important point is this: whether “new” or “used,” the vegetable oil in effect replaces petroleum.  

Let’s be clear on this.  Eric does not fuel up at gasoline stations.  He doesn’t pull up to conventional (petroleum) diesel pumps either.  He drives, just like you and me, but he doesn’t score gasoline fixes.  No Persian Gulf blood on his hands.  What he does do is use a renewable fuel.   

Recall that the biodiesel Eric produces is derived from vegetable oil.  Just as the name suggests, this oil comes from plants.  These “vegetables” get planted, use sunlight as energy to grow, get harvested, have their oil extracted, and return to the soil as compost.  If good agricultural methods are used—for example, the methods organic farmers employ—this cycle can be repeated over and over, without soil depletion or pollution from nitrogen run-off.  That’s what is meant by “renewable.”  Biodiesel, along with ethanol, is one of the premier renewable fuels, and Eric Henry is hooked on it.  

Those who are interested in manufacturing and consuming biodiesel often form cooperatives.  People with a similar interest agree to pool their resources and their efforts, and everyone gets to burn the resulting fuel.  Eric’s small biodiesel operation is now run by just such a cooperative (the Burlington Biodiesel Cooperative).   

Cooperatives make sense for a number of reasons.  It takes some time and effort to produce any significant quantity of biodiesel, so spreading the work around is only sensible.  It also takes money to buy and/or construct the biodiesel reactor, so some of the shared resources are monetary.  Since there are regulations governing fuels sold publicly, cooperatives do not offer their product for sale.  Rather, members cooperate in the collection of the feedstock and in carrying out the manufacturing process, and then share the resulting fuel.  Some cooperatives do sell to the public, but typically the biodiesel they sell in that manner has been purchased from a commercial producer.  There are several established biodiesel cooperatives across North Carolina .  Two of the better-known co-ops are Piedmont Biofuels and Blue Ridge Biofuels.  

As stated earlier, biodiesel derives ultimately from crops. (Incidentally, animal fats also work—tallow, lard, yellow grease.)  What kinds of oil-yielding crops can be grown?  Soybeans, rapeseed, corn, cottonseed, mustard, hemp, canola—these are all crops from which biodiesel can be produced.  This raises some interesting possibilities for North Carolina agriculture.  We are a state whose economic strength has historically been derived from the production of tobacco, textiles, and furniture.  There is no need to comment on the decline of tobacco.   

We are also a state that imports almost all of its energy—that is, we do not pump oil or dig coal from the ground, we don’t mine uranium, we don’t have significant natural gas deposits, and we have limited hydropower capacity.  Between six and seven billion dollars leave the state each year to buy energy.  So we have an agricultural base that is suffering because a once dominant crop is no longer viable, and we bleed money to the outside world through our purchase of energy.  It sure looks as if we could kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. Why not grow our own energy?  

In our state, the idea of using crops and animal waste for energy production is moving to the front burner.  Work on energy-productive biomass is a major thrust of research being undertaken at NC A&T State University.  And our State Energy Office is taking the U.S. energy crisis very seriously—more seriously than is the federal government—and is attempting to position North Carolina at the forefront of innovative, agriculture-based solutions.  GTCC is for the first time offering a 10-week course in biodiesel production.  The class filled immediately, and the waiting list is over 40 people long.  (Next term there will likely be two sections of the course.)  Incidentally, the class took a road trip to a biodiesel cooperative.  Guess which co-op was visited?  You’re right, Eric Henry’s.  

Eric’s VW won’t make it to the seventh generation.  He won’t either.  And of course the age of oil will be over.  But biodiesel—or some alternative renewable fuel—will be going strong.  Biodiesel cannot, by itself, replace the massive quantities of gasoline currently burned in this country.  But it’s part of the solution.  It helps to create energy independence and thus enhances energy security.  It has the potential to create jobs for North Carolinians .  It can help stop the hemorrhaging that results from obtaining our energy elsewhere.  Best of all, its production is sustainable.  If we do it right, perhaps the Iroquois will consider moving south.  

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For more information:

Biodiesel: http://www.biodiesel.org/

Eric Henry’s co-op: http://www.burlingtonbiodiesel.org

Piedmont Biofuels: http://www.biofuels.coop/

Blue Ridge Biofuels: http://www.blueridgebiofuels.com/index.php

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Peter Kauber

Triad Solar

1602 Pepper Hill Road

Greensboro , NC 27407

(336) 852-8791

pkauber@triad.rr.com

For more information contact Eric Henry  336.675.6266                      eric@burlingtonbiodiesel.org