News > October 11, 2007

By Jacob Bathanti | Staff writer

Three years ago, four men discovered they shared a common interest in renewable fuel sources. At the time, the current explosion of interest in renewable fuel sources was just beginning to pick up, and awareness at the university was fairly low.

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Facilities management workers fill up tanks with the biodiesel fuel to be used in diesel engines on campus. (Sophie Mullinax/Old Gold & Black)

Nonetheless, WFU Biofuels, composed of associate professor of biology Miles Silman, professor of biology Dave Anderson, instrumentation manager of the chemistry department Marcus Wright, and technology specialist of the education department Robert Vidrine, pressed on with its plans to create and use biodiesel, raising consciousness of the technology along the way.

As the name suggests, biodiesel is a diesel-type fuel, produced from plant oils, which can be used in diesel engines.

The group, with substantial student help, set up a biodiesel refinery in King, N.C., and began to collect vegetable oil from the Dixie Classic Fair to be refined into biodiesel.

Things have changed significantly since the cadre’s inception.

On Oct. 2, the university received its first shipment of biodiesel from King. With that shipment, the group achieved one of its primary goals: convincing the university to use the biodiesel it produces. While this had been under discussion for a couple years, it had gone nowhere.

The arrival of Jim Alty, the new assistant vice president for Facilities Management who came from UNC-Chapel Hill, provided the catalyst to kick-start the biodiesel program.

Alty had personally seen biodiesel used at UNC-Chapel Hill and at the University of Texas at Austin, and he authorized its introduction into use in the university’s diesel fleet – some two dozen vehicles ranging from tractors and a trash vacuum to a dump truck.

The only diesel vehicles that cannot use the biodiesel mix are two on-road vehicles, which require a finer grade of fuel than that used by the rest of the fleet.

“Overall, this is a great example of a win-win for the entire university community,” Alty said.

He noted that the project allows for considerable cooperation between the academic side of the university and the support staff, a rare phenomenon in higher education.

Alty pointed out that the project is also environmentally sound: Biodiesel is 75 percent lower in net emissions when the carbon consumption of the plants is factored into the cycle.

WFU Biofuels also reached a deal with ARAMARK Dining Services Oct. 9. The deal secured biodiesel use for all the waste oil produced at by the Pit, and will help make the university’s biofuels program more self-contained.

Jim Coffey, manager for landscaping services and the faculty adviser for the Student Environmental Action Coalition, pointed out the symmetry of such a closed cycle.

“Y’all (the student body) have to eat; they (ARAMARK) have to make grease. We collect the grease and actually use that to mow the grass,” Coffey said.

Students have been heavily involved in the work of WFU Biofuels. Recruitment has drawn heavily on SEAC, but other students have just showed up at Anderson’s office or at informational meetings, informed by word of mouth.

While the faculty and staff members of the group take a lead role in tasks requiring technical expertise, students are vital to the menial side of refinery work, including turning valves off and on and carting oil from the fair.

Junior Lacey Robinson, a SEAC member, is one involved student. “It’s completely different from anything else on campus,” Robinson said.

“You actually see what you’re doing, the fruits of your labor.”

Everyone involved in the project – faculty, students and staff – is excited about beginning to use the biodiesel what has been in production for so long. “Otherwise,” Robinson said, “we’re just making biodiesel and it’s sitting in bins and not really doing any good.”

By the same token, however, all parties involved are looking forward to moving ahead with plans to expand.

Anderson and Robinson both expressed hopes that the refinery could eventually be moved to campus.

Anderson said that this would allow for an increased role for students, while Robinson pointed out the inherent environmental problem of driving an hour roundtrip in gas-powered cars every time the refinery needs work.

While a campus-based refinery is being discussed, the space constraints and the money that would be necessary for such a project may make that plan difficult to realize.

Anderson said that the refinery project also has a research component.

One of Wright’s research interests is the development of small-scale chemical reactor technology – the same sort of technology used in the small-scale refinery used by WFU Biofuels.

This raises the possibility that the work of the group will contribute to substantial developments in the aforementioned field.

Anderson said that the goal of WFU Biofuels is not just to produce more and more fuel. The idea of its founders was to raise awareness.

The twinned hopes of those involved in the project are that this consciousness of the potential of renewable energy will continue to be raised, along with an intensification of university commitment to sustainable energy.