Students rethink energy sources

Paul Riley / contributing photographer ISAT professor Chris Bachmann explains the reactor, which will produce biodiesel to supplement the fuel already purchased by JMU.

A project started by three friends blossomed into an environmentally sound project to recycle campus cooking oil into diesel fuel for Harrisonburg buses, tractors and cars.

Integrated Science and Technology seniors Lucian Reynolds and Brannon Balsley, along with junior Justin Miller, demonstrated the $4,300 biodiesel reactor Friday that was purchased through a grant from the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy and funds from JMU’s Facilities Management department.

Reynolds and his friends had been working on developing a smaller biodiesel reactor for three years through JMU’s Alternative Fuels Diversification Program.

"Biodiesel has many benefits, one mainly being that it produces less particulate than regular diesel," said C. J. Brodrick, program Co-director and ISAT assistant professor. Particulate in the air is known to irritate the respiratory system and provoke asthma."

Reynolds said when regular diesel is run on car engines, "you get a lot of harmful byproducts like carbon monoxide and sulfur."

"This is the same sulfuric acid in the rain that wears down your historical monuments and raises the pH in ponds, killing wildlife," Reynolds said. "Biodiesel, on the other hand, which is also scentless and clean, eliminates sulfur almost completely."

"The only other byproduct that comes from producing biodiesel is glycerin, which is used to make soap and can’t really cause any harm," he said.

Brodrick said biodiesel comes from all-natural sources, like animal fat or vegetable oil. Where better a place to get leftover cooking oil than from JMU’s own dining services?

She said since dining facilities and restaurants are not legally permitted to dispose their waste cooking oil by themselves, they must pay a fee to have it taken away by a certified company. Reynolds and his fellow students offered to do it for free.

"It’s actually a nice kind of symbiotic relationship," Reynolds said, about the collaboration between the ISAT department and JMU’s Dining and Facilities Management.

"We wanted the oil to turn it into biodiesel, and they needed someone to take it away, so there was a great opportunity," he said.

For the past 18 months, JMU has been using biodiesel to power its diesel maintenance and grounds vehicles.

Program co-director and ISAT professor Chris Bachmann said JMU is now taking the next step to produce its own fuel on a larger scale.

"Right now, we’re not making that much [biodiesel], but we plan to make more in the future … our refinery is getting bigger, so this is just the beginning," Reynolds said.

Brodrick said, "The prices of fuel are going up, so people are naturally starting to get more interested in other alternatives like biodiesel."

Bachmann said about 90 percent of all vehicles run on petroleum products, "but all of that is going to change soon."

"It’s projected that the world’s oil supply will only last us another 40 years," Bachmann said.

Since 1999, the program has been growing and attracting JMU students from geology majors to interdisciplinary liberal studies majors, according to the biodiesel program Web site. JMU students also have joined the program through seeing an opportunity gain academic training.

Reynolds and his fellow students have been working on a biodiesel-electric hybrid all-terrain vehicle for Shenandoah National Park, while graduate student Steve Bantz is planning to conduct a consumer comparison of commercially available reactors as part of his thesis.