Though many may be unaware, UW is taking steps to becoming cleaner and more energy efficient, including producing clean fuel for its fleet vehicles.
Seth Cude, president of UW’s sustainability club, said the bio diesel project started one year ago when Washakie Dining Center could no longer get their used oil disposed of properly. He decided to invite Zach Waickman, a bio diesel lab manager from Loyala University to talk about bio diesel and to coordinate the project at UW. Cude said Washakie produces about 2,000 gallons of waste oil a year and he would like to turn this waste into clean oil that vehicles can run on.
“That was the whole idea behind this, turning 100 gallons of waste oil into bio diesel doesn’t do a whole lot unless you can do thousands and thousands of gallons, it’s just a nice education project,” Cude said.
Once the project is complete it will be handed off to the sustainability club to run. He said many local businesses are signed on to donate oil given they succeed with the project.
Stephanie Callahan, a senior in chemical engineering currently working on the project, said the project is only in its early testing phase. She said the group was in process of doing a test batch to see if the oil from Washakie is clean enough or needs to be worked in a different way. Callahan said bio diesel is much cleaner and better for the environment.
“Every vehicle has a carbon footprint, your car has one, and my car has one. Bio diesel is much less harmful because of the way it breaks down in comparison to conventional diesel,” Callahan said.
She said if everything goes well they will be able to produce 44 gallons of bio diesel for every 55 gallons of waste oil they get. The senior said their goal is to have two to three batches of clean bio diesel before the semester is over.
Rebecca Pastian, another senior in chemical engineering, said the goal is to reduce waste from Washakie and to reduce the cost of fueling the university’s trucks. She said the group was going to test on whether or not the bio diesel they will produce will be good enough to put into the university’s fleet vehicles.
David Bell, the associate professor of chemical engineering overlooking the bio diesel project, said initially he was concerned the fuel quality was not going to be good enough to put into the fleet vehicles. He said there are many challenges with the waste oil.
“The waste oil is broken down, has more contaminates, more organic acids that tends to give lower yield in converting to a clean fuel,” Bell said. “I think this project is only going to make a small impact in the fuel consumption of the university overall.”
