By Sidney Cruze | June 2005
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Intro
At Edward Holmes’ Exxon on Roxboro Road in Durham, Pump No. 7 stands in line with the other gas pumps, waiting for someone to pull in and fill ‘er up. But unlike the other pumps, No. 7’s front panel shows a blond boy standing amidst a field of yellow flowers. Close by, a sign reads “Just Pump and Go,” “Support our Farmers,” and “Protect our Environment” in green letters. And the pump’s nozzle will fit in your tank, but it won’t give you unleaded gasoline. Pump No. 7 delivers only Biodiesel B20.
B20 is diesel fuel made with 20 percent biodiesel, a petroleum-free fuel made from renewable sources such as soybean oil. Only four pumps in the state sell B20, but together with 19 other biodiesel distributors they deliver 1.5 million gallons of the fuel each year. Soybean farmers are some of biodiesel’s biggest champions. Soybeans are the perfect rotation crop in North Carolina, and one bushel can produce 1.5 gallons of biodiesel fuel. As long as demand for it continues to increase, this alternative fuel promises to be a boon for the 22,000 farmers who grow soybeans in our state.
Making biodiesel is not complicated. If you take 10 gallons of any vegetable oil, then add one gallon of methyl alcohol and some sodium hydroxide—commonly known as boxed lye—you create 10 gallons of biodiesel fuel and one gallon of glycerin. The lye acts as the catalyst for the chemical process called transesterification, which replaces the mixture’s glycerin molecule with an alcohol molecule.
The end product is a clear yellow-gold liquid that is non-toxic and biodegradable. “You can use it on your hands, like you would a lotion,” says Jim Wilder from the North Carolina Soybean Producers Association. “You can even drink it. It won’t hurt you.”
Wilder can quickly list biodiesel’s benefits. The fuel is 10 times less toxic than table salt. It mixes completely with regular diesel and doesn’t separate, making blends like B2, B5 and B20 easy to use in regular diesel engines. It is an excellent lubricant, so it enhances engine performance. Engines running on biodiesel emit fewer hydrocarbons, which means less smog and ozone in the air, and biodiesel doesn’t contain sulfur like regular diesel does. (Sulfur oxide and sulfate emissions are two major components of acid rain.) Finally, biodiesel is made from renewable sources grown here in the United States, so it reduces our dependence on foreign oil.
As executive vice president of the state’s Soybean Producers Association, Wilder is most interested in promoting the economic advantages biodiesel offers for North Carolina farmers.
“I want to help farmers have a better life,” he says. “Our goal, and the goal of the national soybean association, is to get as many distributors as possible to make biodiesel available to growers, then have them use it. This increased use will enhance income for soybean farmers by approximately $5 per acre.”
Wilder gets his numbers from a U.S. Department of Agriculture study indicating that if all farmers used B2 to run their farm equipment, the increase in soybean demand would raise national soybean prices by 17 cents per bushel. In North Carolina, farmers grow an average of 34 bushels of soybeans per acre, so that would be a $5.78 increase in income per acre.
Wilder estimates that today more than 300 North Carolina farmers use a B2 or B5 blend. They started buying biodiesel locally in February 2003, when Brian Potter became the state’s first biodiesel distributor. Potter’s company, Potter Oil & Tire Company Inc. in Aurora (served by Tideland Electric), is now one of two suppliers in the state. The Grain Growers Cooperative is the other. Potter gets the fuel shipped here in 25,000-gallon rail cars from West Central Soy in Ralston, Iowa, and supplies vehicle fleets, such as those employed by the N.C. Department of Transportation and the cities of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Charlotte. Almost every month, he sells more biodiesel than he did the month before.
“We get calls every day from farmers who want to use it,” Potter says, “Nobody is twisting their arm, even though the costs are higher.”
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