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Canola in the Tank: Truck stops that sell biodiesel planned by N.C. businessmen
Journal Photo by Traci White
Outside of the Red Birch truck stop in Bassett, Va., are Derrick Gortman (left) of Winston-Salem, the plant manager for Red Birch Energy, and Dean Price, the owner of the truck stop and a co-owner of Red Birch Energy.
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Published: August 10, 2008
BASSETT, Va. -- A group of North Carolina businessmen hope to create a national network of truck stops that offer more than just coffee and quick meal.
Red Birch Energy has created a delivery and production system for biofuel that includes a production plant next door to the Red Birch Country Market truck stop on U.S. 220 in Bassett. The setup integrates all the steps of the biodiesel industry -- the farmer, the oil provider, the oil crushers, the biodiesel manufacturers and the retailers -- into one step.
"It's where we grow it, we make it, we sell it," said Dean Price, the owner of Red Birch truck stop and a co-owner of Red Birch Energy. "Everything is within house. We don't have to go anywhere else to get the fuel."
Red Birch sees a need to meet growing demand for biofuel and to help make the United States become less dependent on foreign oil.
Price became interested in biodiesel when high gas prices and shortages followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time, he was worried that his two truck stops would run out of fuel, so he started researching biodiesel and learned that canola grain provides the highest percent of usable oil for fuel of any oil-seed crop that will grow in the Southeast.
By the time Red Birch Energy formed, it had three owners -- Price, who lives in Stokesdale, N.C., and his business partners, Rocky Carter of Kernersville, N.C., and Gary Sink of Thomasville, N.C. Derrick Gortman of Winston-Salem, N.C., is the company's plant manager. Sam Brake, the former manager of the Open Grounds Farm in Beaufort, N.C., recruits farmers and shows them how to grow canola, as well as promoting biodiesel.
Red Birch said that its closed-loop delivery system is the first of its kind in the country.
The company started selling biodiesel at its plant last month and hopes to offer the fuel at the truck stop this weekend.
Red Birch Energy wants to work with farmers throughout North Carolina and Virginia, and contracts with them to grow crops. They plan to pay producers $9 a bushel. The fuel sells for $4 a gallon, with a quarter of the price allocated to profit.
Ron Fish, an assistant director of the marketing division for the N.C. Department of Agriculture, said that the department is following the progress of canola for biodiesel and that farmers in the state are always looking for opportunities, albeit cautiously.
"Depending on what's happening in the marketplace, they will look at crops and make decisions from season to season," he said. "Where canola might be a good option this year it may not be the best option next year. To decide the future of a crop or make a recommendation on a crop indefinitely is not something that's easily done.
Red Birch has 11 contracts with farmers in North Carolina to grow the Virginia variety of canola, including one in the Lexington area. There are also two research stations with plots of canola -- one at the Piedmont Research Station at the Chinqua-Penn Plantation in Reidsville and another in the mountains near Fletcher.
Keith Sink of Piney Grove Farm in the Lexington area recently harvested 40 bushels an acre from 16 acres of canola for Red Birch, just to try out the crop. He plans to grow canola again next year because of its potential as a renewable-fuel source.
Price said that canola could be a new cash crop.
"This is a renewable, sustainable crop that will come back year in and year out," Price said.
There are 1,000 to 2,000 acres of canola grown in North Carolina, but drought reduced the acreage last fall.
Canola, which is an acronynm for Canada Oil Low Acid, is a cold-season crop and a big crop in Canada. In the U.S., 90 percent of the country's canola crop is grown in North Dakota.
In North Carolina, depending on the location, canola is usually planted from late September to mid-October. It grows over the winter and is harvested in the spring.
Nic George, the biofuels-project coordinator for the Energy Crops for North Carolina Project based in the N.C. Solar Center in Raleigh, said that canola is the only biofuel crop, aside from corn, that can be used in commercial fuel applications in North Carolina at the moment.
He said that making biodiesel from canola is simpler than making ethanol from corn because it is a chemical process as opposed to a biological process.
"You don't have to worry about fermenting it or anything," he said. "You just mix the appropriate chemicals together and shake it up in a jar and you've got biodiesel. And biodiesel can be run in any diesel engine without any modifications."
Red Birch sells a B20 Blend, which means that its biodiesel is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent No. 2 diesel, or highway diesel. The company eventually wants to offer a variety of blends.
Although most biodiesel in the United States comes from soybean oil, canola has several advantages.
"It grows in winter as opposed to summer like soybean, so it's not competing with soybeans," George said. "It can be an alternative crop in the rotation."
Canola also yields about twice the amount of oil per acre than soybeans, he said. Canola usually contains 44 percent oil, compared with soybeans at 20 percent oil.
The Red Birch plant produces 4,000 gallons of biodiesel daily when it's in production, but the company hopes to increase production capacity to 10,000 gallons a day.
■ Fran Daniel can be reached at 727-7366 or at fdaniel@wsjournal.com.
Canola footprint
Red Birch Energy in Bassett, Va., contracts with 11 farmers to grow canola in North Carolina:
County - No. farmers
Davidson - 1
Carteret - 1
Columbus - 1
Edgecombe - 1
Hoke - 1
Northhampton - 3
Rockingham 1
Robeson - 1
Wayne - 1
Source: Red Birch Energy
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