Man uses canola seeds to produce biodiesel fuel

By Sarah Arkin

Published: July 26, 2008

Dean Price smiled Tuesday as he eagerly dug his hands into what he thinks will be the next black gold: six acres’ worth of tiny, round, black canola seeds.

In those seeds, cascading into the pronounced 100-foot tall grain bin on U.S. 220 in Bassett, Price sees the next wave of non-petroleum options and the future of America’s energy industry.

In just a few days and with some chemical conversions, that canola — grown at the Upper Piedmont Research Center at the Chinqua Penn plantation in Rockingham County, N.C. — will be ready as fuel for trucks and tractors.

It also can be used for home heating.

“This biodiesel is going to be a big part of the future,” said Price, who has been in the truck stop industry for 14 years, operating the Red Birch Country Market truck stops along U.S. 220.

“We have no choice.”

For the past few years, Price has worked with farmers in Rockingham County and Pittsylvania County, engineers, chemists and agronomists to figure out a way to kick America’s foreign-oil habit.

It started after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the price of fuel soared as the government dipped into national reserves.

“It got me thinking to how vulnerable we were to a shortage, and how that would cripple our economy,” Price said.

So he asked himself: “What could I do on a small scale that could possibly make a difference?”

Alternative energy was the clear solution, and as he delved into research and crossed paths with others in the field, it seemed clear that canola was his answer.

Dr. Harbans Bhardwaj, a professor at Virginia State University who has been studying the seed for years — and with whom Price has been consulting — says canola “produces the best oil for biodiesel making.”

The fatty acid composition of canola, which is low in saturated fatty acids, translates into the high quality of biodiesel, Bhardwaj explained. At 44 percent, canola seeds have a high oil content — better, he argues, than soybeans and corn, which are also being used to generate alternative forms of energy.

And it’s not just the higher efficacy of canola that makes it better.

Food versus fuel

A few years ago, ethanol was the rave. Farmers across the United States were contracting to grow corn and wheat for fuel and receiving subsidies from the government.

Now, the price of an ear of corn has “skyrocketed.” Livestock farmers are having trouble affording feed for their animals, and the world is facing a famine crisis.

With canola, Bhardwaj says, you don’t run into as big of a problem, explaining that after crushing the oil out of the seed, the meal remains.

“And that’s one of the best feed stocks for dairy cattle, for swine, turkeys and chicken,” he said.

Furthermore, he said, three or four years of research has shown that planting soybeans in rotation with canola garners a greater yield of soybeans.

And that’s not the only way that canola avoids entanglement in the criticism, said Sam Brake, who serves as a liaison between Red Birch and contracting farmers. The variety of canola that thrives in the Piedmont is a winter crop; planted in October and harvested in June, just in time for farmers to plant corn and wheat.

The emissions from biofuels are much less toxic than those from diesel.

The mechanics

Along his research path, Price connected with Derrick Gortman, a self-titled “master multi-crafter.”

Under the administration of President Carter, who promoted tax incentives for alternative fuel methods, Gortman spent a lot of time “just seeing what was out there…(spending) hours, lots and lots of hours” in research, holed up in libraries throughout his native North Carolina at Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

With a minimal amount of community college credits available, this time spent was mostly his own.

His research mostly stopped during the administration of President Reagan and picked up again when tax incentives were again available.

“I needed to pick something,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I have a diesel van, and my parents are farmers.”

So, Gortman built a biodiesel processor in his basement and began experimenting.

The fruit of that labor is the Red Birch facility.

Gortman grinned as he looked around the truck stop/fuel station/ biodiesel production facility Tuesday — quite a step above the first refinery he built in his basement.

He paints a relatively simple process.

First, the canola seeds are crushed to extract the oil. The oil is processed, which involves two lines of three tanks each.

One hundred gallons of canola oil are dumped into the first tank where Gortman adds chemicals, including sodium hydroxide and methanol. After the pump stops in the tank, glycerin settles out of the oil.

Then the oil goes through the wash tank, extracting the chemicals. The oil goes through another wash and then is laid out to dry.

A few hours later, it’s ready to be sold.

Local impact

Part of the beauty of the whole operation, Price says, is that it’s all condensed. With the processor on site, it doesn’t need to be trucked for sale.

In fact, he says, “90 cents of every dollar stays local with biofuels. The other 10 cents goes to the federal government.”

And most important, he argues, “It doesn’t go to support the very people we’re in a conflict with.”

Price expects a gallon of the biodiesel to sell for between $2 and $2.50; half of what diesel is selling for across the country.

In his business, he said, he’s lucky to make 10-15 cents on a gallon of fuel. With the biodiesel, he’s projecting a profit of $1 per gallon.

He emphasized that this one truck stop isn’t going to solve the fuel addiction in the area, not even the state. It’s one part of a bigger effort.

It’s got to be a kind of “grassroots movement,” he said. He envisions one or two small-scale operations, like his, in every county.

“In the face of a crisis in the United States, the farmer has always brought us through it,” said Price, citing Washington and Jefferson among others. “I truly believe Virginia farmers can do it.”

Is it viable for the Piedmont?

Though biofuels have quickly integrated into mainstream vocabulary attached with ideals of environmentalism and decreasing dependency on foreign oil, at a basic level a biodiesel operation is simply another business investment.

And it must be viable and profitable.

But, as Price said, it comes down to the farmer.

And the farmer has to answer a simple economics question: Will growing canola yield a good return on investment?

Agriculture extension agents in Pittsylvania and Rockingham counties agree the question hasn’t yet been entirely answered.

“No farmer that I know is going to just jump on something right off the gate without history and research,” said Stephen Barts, who is with the Virginia Cooperative Extension in Pittsylvania County.

He believes many farmers are worried about entry costs.

Typically, he said, commodity crops need to be grown on a large scale, which isn’t something Virginians can do, especially compared to bigger Midwestern states with flat, expansive land.

Additionally, the combines and other equipment needed for canola are exceedingly expensive and maintenance support isn’t as available as in other places.

Scott Shoulars with Rockingham County Agriculture Extension isn’t convinced that canola’s growing season will flow that well with other crops, including corn, wheat and soybeans.

Shoulars and Barts acknowledge, however, that canola presents a new option, and with tobacco returns on a steady decline, farmers are in need of a new crop.

“There’s definitely a possibility in there,” said Barts, but he doesn’t see farmers clamoring over each others’ fields to be first in line for the seed. 

The legwork

It’s just not sensible for farmers to plant acres and acres of a crop they’re not familiar with. But the way to get more familiar with the seed is to grow it.

Enter Brake, Red Birch’s resident agronomist.

“We’re all learning together,” he said. Brake, who comes from a farming family, is well aware of the uncertainties that come with starting a new crop. In addition to being hands-on with the research projects, one of his roles is creating a newsletter for canola growers in the region, including best times to plant, when to spray the plants with what and other agronomical concerns.

That first batch of seeds that came into the truck stop earlier this week came from the Upper Piedmont Research Center at Chinqua Penn, where Dr. Joe French, superintendent of the research station, has been monitoring 56 varieties of the crop.

After just one year of growing, and particularly one that was hit with a drought last summer, French isn’t ready just yet to hop on the biodiesel-powered train full speed ahead, and he suspects that farmers in the Piedmont aren’t quite there either.

“You really need to (grow) three to five years and then do all the data,” he said. “You can take into account the normal fluctuation of water and what you can expect (from the crop), he said.

That doesn’t mean he’s pessimistic about the prospect of changing the landscape of Piedmont growing. But he doesn’t think that’ll happen “until (we know more about) the yields and expectations…until you know the economics of it.”

Brake, who comes from a long line of tobacco farmers, is confident. Biodiesel has gotten him excited about farming, he said.

“It’s good for farmers, for local economy stimulation, and it burns clean, and that’s good for all of us. ... It’s good for everybody.”

Contact Sarah Arkin at or (434) 791-7983.