With interest in renewable fuels rising even faster than the price of energy, some New Hampshire farmers have begun making their own fuel, processing recycled cooking oil or pressing oil from their own seed crops to make biodiesel, which they use instead of petroleum-derived diesel fuel to power farm equipment.

Hands-on workshop shows you how
If you'd like to learn more about what's involved in making and using biodiesel, UNH Cooperative Extension will host a workshop June 5, from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. at Tuckaway Farm in Lee, where farmer Dorn Cox grows sunflowers, presses oil from the seeds, and processes biodiesel for on-farm use in a unit he designed and built.

Workshop topics
"The morning session will feature a hands-on workshop with folks from Piedmont Biofuels in North Carolina, where they make 4000 gallons a day of biodiesel from poultry fat," says Becky Grube, Cooperative Extension's sustainable horticulture specialist. "Unfortunately, we had to limit participation in that session, and the slots have all been filled.

"But there's plenty of room in the afternoon workshop, where participants will break into groups and rotate through two stations, one to see the oilseed presses in operation and the mobile processing unit at Tuckaway Farm, the other to see Piedmont's mobile biodiesel processor, a combined heat and power biodiesel production system," Grube says. "Matt Rudolf of Piedmont will then lead a group discussion of the economics, safety, and quality issues of on-farm biodiesel production."

The workshop wraps up with a visit to UNH's Kingman Farm, where Grube and Cox will talk about growing sunflowers.

Ongoing farmer-driven research
"This workshop continues the farmer-driven research we started two years ago when Dorn came to UNH looking for a partner to help him evaluate how sunflowers perform in this area and to test the feasibility of small-scale oil pressing," says Grube. "Our Extension colleagues in Vermont and Maine have also been working on homegrown farm energy production. We have a lot more work ahead, but the future for on-farm energy production looks promising."

Workshop details
The morning session is full. The afternoon session and trip to Kingman Farm are free, but requires pre-registration. To register or learn more, call Suzanne Hebert at 862-3200.

Directions to Tuckaway Farm

Photo credit: Biodiesel sunflower crop at Kingman Farm, by Faye Cragin, UNH Cooperative Extension World Wide Web and Media Specialist

For more information
Oil Seed Sunflowers for On-Farm Biodiesel Processing Dorn Cox and Becky Grube report on their first year of collaborative research investigating the potential of various varieties of sunflowers for biodiesel production.

On Farm Oil Seed Production and Processing University of Vermont publication that summarizes a year of oilseed research in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.