Alternate Energy Secrets » College Students Use French Fries To Fuel Tractors

EDMONTON — The Little Royal Rodeo contestants in Vermilion may have had a strange hankering for french fries last month.Most probably didn’t know that the old Case tractor that tilled the ground in Lakeland College’s riding arena was running on used french fry oil.

“The riding arena has the lovely odeur de french fries,” said Arnica Rowan, a business instructor at Lakeland College who is part of a student-led team aiming to replace the expensive diesel in the college’s farm equipment with an environmentally friendly alternative.

“Post-secondary institutions have to be creative and entrepreneurial in how they run their expenses,” Rowan said. “This is about saving money, but it’s also about an attitude change. It’s about instilling a sense of pride in our environmental efforts.”

Lakeland’s Vermilion campus, about 190 kilometres east of Edmonton, has the largest student-run farm in Canada, with John Deere tractors, New Holland combines, swathers, bobcats and lawn mowers that all run on diesel fuel.

Last year, Lakeland spent $2 million on utilities. That includes natural gas, but a good chunk of the money went to run diesel-fueled machinery.

So in March, students took their first barrel of used canola oil from the college’s two cafeterias. They cleaned out the french fry chunks, removed the glycerine with a student-made processor, and fed the oil into the puttering red Case tractor used in the rodeo arena.

The old, ratty diesel tractor once coughed up clouds of stinky smoke, Rowan said. Not anymore. The tractor, which now runs on 100-per-cent biodiesel, dug up the rodeo rink without spewing any black fumes.

“It’s a wonderful use of a waste product,” Rowan said. “It hugely reduces the carbon-monoxide emissions you’re putting into the air.”

Egisto Mariani, the director of food services on campus, said he sells about 108 kilograms of fries each week and uses 80 litres of oil in deep fryers every two weeks. Until now, the cafeteria had to pay $40 every two months to get the used oil taken away.

Now, it’s taken to a horse stall and cleaned by a filter made of an aquarium water pump, funnels and a hot water tank. This summer, a group from Katimavik — a national youth volunteer-service program — will make soap from the glycerine extracted from the oil.

“I feel it’s important and a growing industry with the increasing amount of pollution in the world today,” said Kyle Parkyn, a 21-year-old student in environmental conservation who is involved in the Sunfuel project.

Canada has been slow to jump on the biodiesel train, lagging far behind many places in Europe where grease guzzlers must pay a duty on their fuel because the oil is more commonly used in cars. Some Canadian cities have biodiesel fuelling stations that sell a mixture of 20 per cent soy, canola or other cooking oil with 80 per cent petroleum diesel. In 2004, a resident in Edmonton’s Riverdale neighbourhood converted his diesel-burning Toyota SUV into a diesel-vegetable oil hybrid.

The mixture is sometimes necessary because canola oil will thicken when the temperature reaches -15 C. Though Rowan said the biodiesel is easier on engines than regular fuel, the college may also have to use the petroleum-canola oil mixture in new farm machinery, because of warranty issues. Despite that, Lakeland College is currently working to convert more of its machinery.

Rowan said she receives at least one phone call a day from area farmers interested in knowing how to build biodiesel processors.

“It could make a huge dent in your fuel bill,” said Rowan, noting that students will lead how-to workshops this summer. She said a processor can be built for $800 to $1,000 and estimates the college will save between $2,000 and $10,000 a year with the fuel changes.

jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com