Case Study

t-shirt soaked biodiesel

By Angie Lovelace

More in the Fall 2009 issue

Six years ago, Eric Henry, president of TS Designs, personally invested in biodiesel.  He bought a 45-gallon "FuelMeister" processor and sold his Subaru to buy a 2000 Volkswagen Golf TDI.  Since then, he has been at the forefront of biodiesel as an alternative renewable fuel in North Carolina.  But TS Designs is not a fuel company.  It is a T-shirt company, devoted to creating a sustainable product while maintaining its triple bottom line of the People, the Planet, and Profits.
After being inspired by a biodiesel presentation by Yokayo Biofuels' Kumar Plocher at Solfest in Hopland, CA, Henry met FuelMeister inventor Rudi Wiedemann and bought the very first one.  Soon he had enlisted the help of Dr. Jack Martin, a professor at North Carolina A&T and Appalachian State University. The two teamed together to produce the first batch, and on November 3, 2003, Henry filled up his Volkswagen Golf with biodiesel.
Soon, Henry started to form the Burlington Biodiesel Co-op.  The Fuelmeister was producing 45 gallons a batch, but the demand was just too high and the supply was not cutting it.  In March of 2005, Martin connected Henry with NC A&T to purchase the original FuelMeister, and shortly thereafter they built the second reactor, more than doubling their output to support a total of 100 gallons per batch.
Currently, the co-op has 10 members and produces one to two batches of biodiesel per week, at 90 to 100 gallons per batch.  Consistently producing biodiesel since 2003, the co-op has only run dry twice. The co-op constantly receives requests for new membership, but they decided from the beginning, and wrote into their bylaws, that they would not add new members until enough fuel could be produced to support them.  They are also a working co-op; all the labor comes from the co-op members. This helps greatly to keep the prices down.
"When people call up to ask about the co-op, I always ask them why they want to join and if their answer is to save money, I tell them this is not the co-op for you unless you have a lot of free time and your time is not worth much," Henry said.
The co-op has evolved to certain members having certain jobs. Henry and Bob Higgs concentrate on the fuel making, while others work on equipment design and maintenance, and others collect and filter used fryer oil.  The price per gallon is decided on at monthly meetings. The co-op does pay road tax.  
The Burlington Biodiesel Co-op gets their waste vegetable oil free from local restaurants by offering a removal service.  Members pick up the oil from about 12 restaurants within a 10-15 mile radius.  The co-op focuses on working with local restaurants, connecting directly with the owners, avoiding company headquarters hundreds of miles away.
"The best part about living in the South is that we fry a lot of food," Henry jokingly said.  "Right now we are only scratching the surface of the available oil."
To minimize the amount of energy input, the co-op gets process heat from a compost pile and has future plans of using a solar hot water heat exchanger.  The pile, which was designed by Martin, heats an old 250-gallon oil tank that is filled with water and is buried in the compost pile.  The pile consists of tree grindings from a local tree service company and leaves from the city.
The pile, which stays anywhere from 150-170 degrees, keeps the water between 120-130 degrees.  The leaves, sawdust and yard waste that make up the pile must be rebuilt every year as the material completes its decomposition and stops generating heat.   
With biodiesel being produced at TS Designs, Henry and his business partner Tom Sineath, also a member of the co-op, were not satisfied using a vehicle running on regular gasoline.  So, in the fall of 2007 they had an opportunity to purchase a 1994, low mileage, diesel-powered Isuzu box truck, allowing them to transport their product to and from their dye house, about a 10 mile round trip in a vehicle that is currently running on B20-B80.
"We are a society of consumers and are highly dependent on fossil fuels," Sineath said.  "Biodiesel isn't a cure-all, but it is a step in the right direction."
"Biodiesel is a solution that works today," Henry said.  "I believe you have to demonstrate sustainable solutions not just talk about them." 
"Biodiesel is not the 'total' solution to our oil addiction, but is an important part of the solution for our country to become energy independent," Henry said.
The co-op pays a road tax, but they cannot sell their biodiesel to the public. Instead, it is reserved for their members and any excess is sold for farmers for off-road use.
But with interest in biodiesel rising in the area, Henry and Sineath saw the need for a retail filling station.  They partnered with Piedmont Biofuels out of Pittsboro, NC and rezoned their land for consumer traffic to put in a public fuel tank in front of the TS Designs facility.  
Last year, the co-op leased about a 200 square foot space in the back of the TS Designs so that they could be completely self-sufficient and could have access when TS Designs was closed.  Now members have 24-hour access to work and obtain fuel.
The biodiesel station is a completely green structure. It is made out of Hebel block, an aerated cellular concrete which insulates the structure.  The energy to power the station comes from TS Designs' wind turbine and tracking solar array.
"To my knowledge, it is the only 100% renewable-energy-powered biodiesel station in the country," Henry said.
The station is part of the Piedmont Biofuels Co-op's "B100 Community Trail," and is available to members 24 hours a day, seven days a week via card-swipe entry. S

Angie Lovelace is a journalism student at Elon University. She also works for TS Designs and loves sustainable initiatives.