Lorain/Elyria, OH
Oberlin College mows down diesel usage
OBERLIN - Â A pleasant whiff of what appears to be hot frying grease floats in the air behind a powerful Kubota tractor mowing large tracts of land at Oberlin College.
That`s because the tractor has been converted to run on vegetable-oil instead of fossil fuels.
“It smells like McDonald`s or Burger King when it goes down the road,” said Oberlin Grounds Services Manager Dennis Greive.
The ecologically friendly tractor has been in use for several weeks now and is powered by cooking oil with expired dates, Greive said.
Ultimately, the plan is for the tractor to run on used cooking grease from the college dining halls, he said.
With help from Sam Merrett, an Oberlin College graduate who runs Full Circle Fuels, the college installed a tank for vegetable oil on the tractor and kept the diesel tank.
When first started, the tractor must run on diesel fuel before the vegetable oil is heated enough for a switchover. It takes about 15 minutes in the summer, and the college does not yet know how long it will take in the winter when the tractor is used for snow removal.
The tractor conversion is similar to diesel conversions done on diesel cars and trucks at Full Circle Fuels on South Main Street.
The project is supported by the Green Ecological Design and General Efficiency Fund, which was created in 2007 to encourage sustainability projects initiated by students and community members.
Oberlin College vehicles - including the grounds tractors - burn more than 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year, resulting in 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The tractor conversion will reduce the college`s consumption of fossil fuels by at least 700 gallons and eliminate more than 7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The college also expects to cut fuel costs by about $1,500 a year.
The conversion of the tractor should pay for itself through energy savings in a couple of years, Greive said.
Greive said the company that supplies the kit needed for the conversion did not know of any other colleges with veggie-powered tractors, so Oberlin could be plowing new ground as it cuts grass.
So far there are no hiccups with the new system under hard usage, he said.
“We mow grass with it up to eight hours at a time,” he said.
Nathan Engstrom, coordinator of the college`s Office of Environmental Sustainability, said every ton of carbon dioxide emissions the college is able to eliminate is another step toward reaching the goal of carbon neutrality.
“The more creative and innovative we can be, the sooner we`ll reach that goal and the less money we`ll have to spend to get there,” Engstrom said.
While there are no concrete plans to convert additional vehicles, the success of the tractor conversion could lead to other vehicles being converted in the future, according to Greive and Engstrom.
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Gee, If this one little tractor can save 7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions out of a possible 33 tons for all the colleges vehicles and other lawn tractors which includes 15 - 20 cars, trucks and vans, plus 4-5 utility vehicles, and 1-2 Greyhound type Buses; they should convert them all and produce 300 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and produce more than 8,000 extra gallons of fossil fuel ?
Hmmmnn, something doesn’t add up here, but I guess mathmatics is not a strong subject at Oberlin College.
People, if your going to quote figures to glorify the merits of a program, at least do the math and make it plausable.
Its kind of like the politicians who say that unemployment is the lowest ever… its only because they only count those who are drawing unemployment benefits, but does not include those who still are not working, but who’se benefits have expired.
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@RJR,
I’m with you… The simple math says that if they burned 3000 gallons of diesel per year, (about 21,450 lbs using a higher density weight of 7.15 lbs / gal.), then the MOST that the TOTAL EMMISSIONS could be is a little over 10 tons. Subtract from that the fact that MOST of diesel exhaust is particulate, CARBON MONOXIDE, and NOX (plus some other nasty things), that tonnage drops even more.
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There math is right. They are only looking at diesel usage not gasoline usage, and if the little tractor uses about ¼ of the diesel fuel then the total CO2 output should drop by the same ratio. The reason the CO2 weight is greater than the fuel weight is because it is including the weight of the oxygen from the air that combines with the carbon in the fuel. But the EPA uses a percentage that about 99% of the carbon is oxidized to CO2, not into CO. Whatever that percentage is will reduce that portion by 1/3. The real flaw in the story is they seem to think that biofuels produce no CO2. Just because they are burning biodiesel doesn’t eliminate the CO2 produced. Biodiesel only reduce CO2 emissions by about 16%. So that 7 tons is only about 1.1 tons. And biodiesel is only about 85% as energy efficient as regular diesel. So it takes more fuel to do the same about of work. Wikipedia has an energy content break down of different fuels, it turns out that the energy output to CO2 output is higher for diesel. Which means for the same CO2 output biodiesel only produces about 94% of the energy, or in other words the biodiesel tractor will produce 6.3% more CO2 than diesel. So they are actually producing .5 tons more CO2. If by taking the used oil is cheaper then go for it save a few bucks to educate the kids to work on an organic farm, but they aren’t going to save the world.
Now they will probably say the veggie oil is renewable and takes CO2 out of the air as it grows making it more eco-friendly. Other studies have shown that aspect of it is negligible at best.
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Their math…
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