Sustainability

From the Flower to the Fuel Tank

By Frankie Abralind

More in the Summer 2008 issue

Thad Doye plants wheat in the fall. During the winter, until about April, he grazes "wheat pasture calves" on it. At the ranch in Oklahoma that he runs with his 73-year-old dad, Doye's business is cattle.

"The largest percentage of what I do is try to raise pounds of beef," says Doye.
But with only a couple hundred cows, Doye has another job to support himself.
Recently his work in the Oklahoma Farm Bureau has him traveling around the region talking about the biodiesel he makes. 

"We, as agriculture, are going to have to figure out some way to survive. Even with the high grain prices, our input costs have doubled just like the price of grain, as far as our energy costs, fuel and fertilizer both," Doye tells audiences.

For Doye, the solution is home-grown fuel. 

Doye credits his dad for getting their equipment running on vegetable-oil fuel.
"We had rigged a tractor to start on diesel and shut down on diesel, but when we were working it we ran it on pure sunflower oil, 20 years ago. [Dad] was always trying to learn as we were going. He was just trying to make his operation more profitable, back in the first fuel crunch of the late 70's and early 80's," says Doye.

Today, the operation is a little more technologically advanced--the Doyes have upgraded to biodiesel. To date they've produced about 1,500 gallons of biodiesel, 45 gallons at a time, with a "transesterification unit" from Midland, Texas- based "Biodiesel 123." Doye chose it because of its methanol recovery system. He admits it's very primitive, though. "It's just a barrel bung and a piece of copper tube." 

The "keep-it-simple" theme seems to pervade Doye's biodiesel experience. In some ways, it's paying off. For example, so far he's experienced no mechanical problems with any engines other than cold weather filter plugging. 

On the other hand, parts of his operation verge on crazy. 

Ask him what he does with his glycerine byproduct and he's all hopes and theories.
"My glycerine? I am still storing it. I could sell it, but Oklahoma State University wants to do some research. 

"The main reason I'm storing it is that I think I can make a liquid-grade fertilizer out of it to use when I'm planting the product. I'm storing it on the hunch that I will be able to use it in that, for a soil builder, rather than just having to get rid of it."

That's right, he's still storing all the crude biodiesel glycerine he's produced, some with NaOH and some with KOH, right there at the ranch. 

It's in old barrels from a Coca-Cola bottling facility. 

"A couple of the other universities around are using glycerine in the feed ration, to see if they can feed it hogs or cattle. I may be able to mix it right back into my sunflower meal and use it as a feed," imagines Doye. "If I can get the glycerine switched over to a usable product I will have absolutely no waste in the process."

Washing the fuel is another soft area in Doye's operation. 

"We've done it both ways," says Doye. "I guess I'm a rebel, because I'll experiment a little bit any time and see what happens. I haven't washed every batch, for sure. It's just one of those deals, I have trouble adding water to my fuel. But everything I read now says I have to wash it. So probably as I get going again [this summer] I'll go back to washing."

Pre-processing the raw oil follows the keep-it-simple mantra as well. "We do filter quite a bit out of the sunflowers. You get some sunflower mash, or whatever you want to call it, coming with the oil, and we screen it and filter it from there right into the biodiesel processor," says Doye. 

"The ultimate goal of my sunflower project was just to be able to produce my own fuel for my own farming operation. Truly just trying to help my operation out," says Doye. "You learn by your failures, in a sense, that's what I really think."

Doye knows if his ideas are worthwhile when he goes out and tries them. And so far, the sunflower project at the Doye ranch is a shining success.