Students Turn to Fast Food for Cleaner Fuel Recipe
Va. Chemistry Class Creates Biodiesel Out of Used Fry Oil
By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Science teacher Bill Peery was on a mission for higher education.
The object of his search lay not in a library but at the bottom of a Burger King deep fryer: 15 gallons of congealed vegetable oil.
No, there would be no class lessons on fat grams and the nutritional void that is fast food. Peery and his teaching colleagues at the Potomac School in McLean had much grander plans for the stuff.
Yesterday, his eighth-grade students “gassed up” one of the school’s little yellow buses with their own classroom-made, fryer-fat fuel—environmentally friendly biodiesel.
“We were interested in putting together a hands-on project to enhance chemistry” lessons, Peery said. “I was booting around the Internet when I found information on biodiesels. I thought, ‘How hard could this be to make?’”
Apparently, not too hard for junior high school students. Using two-liter plastic soda bottles—affectionately known in biodiesel circles as the “Dr. Pepper technique”—the teenagers combined lye (sodium hydroxide) and methyl alcohol with the waste vegetable oil from Burger King.
Shake it up, let it sit overnight to separate and two products emerge: biodiesel (methyl ester) and glycerin (if you’re thinking soap, you’re right, but the kids discarded that part). Then they cut their fuel with 40 percent regular petroleum diesel and fed it to the bus.
“Those students deserve hearty congratulations,” said William C. Holmberg, chairman of the New Uses Council, a nonprofit group dedicated in part to the production of biofuels. “They’re experimenting with a technology that will reduce American dependence on imported oil, contribute to greenhouse gas stabilization, reduce emissions and clean up the disposals of used cooking oil, animal fat and yellow grease. It’s just damn good.”
Biodiesel eliminates most of the black soot associated with diesel because it contains oxygen and burns more completely and cleanly. The noxious odor is also gone. In the case of Potomac’s bus, the air outside was filled with the inviting smell of french fries.
Joe Jobe, executive director of the National Biodiesel Board, said regular diesel and blended biodiesel are about the same regarding performance and mileage. The downside of biodiesel is higher cost: A gallon of diesel blended with 2 percent biodiesel costs about 2 cents more per gallon, Jobe said.
But cost is only part of the reason biodiesel isn’t widely used.
“The biggest reason the man on the street isn’t using biodiesel is the man on the street doesn’t have a diesel vehicle,” Jobe said. “But diesel is starting to penetrate the passenger car market.”
Science teacher Christine Hunt, who organized the school project with Peery, said biodiesel’s lessons are many. “As emerging citizens, [the students] have lots of choices,” Hunt said. “Not that they’ll be [making] biodiesel before heading off to the store each day, but it is raising issues in their minds. If you have choices, what choice do you make?”
Peery first experimented with the alternative fuel last year, giving the school’s tractor a tankful made from fish-and-chips oil, courtesy of the Old Brogue Irish Pub in Great Falls. This year, students churned out 10 gallons, enough for a couple of round-trip bus rides to McLean.
Still, there were doubters.
“What if there are impurities in the fuel and it blows up?” teased student Gabriel Pinchev, 13, minutes before boarding the bus. “What if we’re late for our French test?”
“It won’t blow up,” Hunt assured him. “And I’ll speak French on the bus.”
At 8:20 a.m., the first of five science classes boarded the French Fry Mobile, with Peery at the wheel, and took off down Chain Bridge Road.
Passing motorists were all stares as the bus—decorated with bannered slogans such as “Admit it… . My exhaust smells like French fries”—rolled by.
Jobe said about 25 millions gallons of biodiesel were produced last year in the United States, up from 500,000 in 1999. It’s still used mostly by trucks, buses and tractors—about 200 fleets nationwide. But Harvard University recently announced that its diesel vehicles now run on biodiesel. And last month, rock musician Neil Young hit the road on a concert tour, his buses fueled by biodiesel.
The first leg of the Potomac bus’s first trip ended in a Safeway parking lot several miles down the road.
“We made it,” Peery said, triumph in his voice.
A visitor asked whether he had doubts.
“None,” he said smiling into the rearview mirror. “But it’s fun to make the kids worry a little.”
2004 The Washington Post Company(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Posted by: Paul on March 15, 2004 at 23:54:31