A state road crew planted sunflowers today along the Park Drive exit ramp on Interstate 74 West as part of a new effort to produce biodiesel fuel.
Crews also planted another row of sunflowers near the highway's exit ramp to U.S. 601. The sunflowers or canola plants are the source of canola oil.
Rather than using the oil for cooking, the state wants to refine it to use in its vehicles.
The N.C. Department of Transportation is working with N.C. State University, which is researching whether growing biofuel crops along highway rights of way makes economic sense.
In the United States, most biodiesel is made from soybean oil. But canola oil, sunflower oil, recycled cooking oil and animal fats also are used, according the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
To produce biodiesel, the base oil moves through a refining process called esterificiation, the EPA says. The process uses ethanol or methanol and a substance that enables a chemical reaction to convert the oil into a fatty-acid methyl-ester fuel, which is a biodiesel.
Biodiesel can be blended with conventional diesel fuel, the EPA says. Biodiesel is registered with the EPA and is legal for use in highway and off-road diesel vehicles.
Most diesel engines can run on biodiesel without needing any special equipment. Using biodiesel fuel reduces greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the EPA.
State transportation officials got the idea for the project after they read about a similar program in Utah called Freeways to Fuel, said Peter Zane, a DOT spokesman.
University researchers and state transportation officials are trying to determine whether highway rights of way are cost-effective places to grow biofuel sources such as canola.
The DOT plants and maintains the test crops while N.C. State, through its biofuels program, does the research on the plantings. Crews also have planted plots of canola along highways in Raleigh, Faison and Rutherford County.
"The biodiesel program is one example of our department's overall commitment to creating a more livable, sustainable future in North Carolina," Transportation Secretary Gene Conti said in a statement.
Testing sunflower plantings produced a yield of 550 pounds of per acre. That resulted in about 40 gallons of biodiesel from each acre of sunflowers.
N.C. State researchers calculate that the cost of biodiesel production would equal the cost of purchasing gasoline or diesel fuel, and have less environmental impact.
The transportation department's diesel-powered fleet uses B20 biodiesel, a mixture made up of 20 percent biofuel and 80 percent ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel.
Since 2006, the DOT estimates it has saved approximately 4 million gallons of fossil fuel by using biodiesel, and for every gallon of biodiesel used, the amount of air pollution is reduced by 20 percent.
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