MaryJanesFarm Grows Its Own Fuel

by E. Kirsten Peters
Excerpted and reprinted with permission from Moscow-Pullman Daily News, April 7, 2004

With record high prices of gasoline and diesel hitting motorists across the Palouse, it’s no wonder that some people are attracted to the idea of growing their own fuel.

“Last year we grew 22 acres of mustard. We pressed the seeds for the oils and we’ll be making biodiesel from that this spring to run my 1981 Mercedes,” MaryJane Butters said.

Biodiesel is in use at the University of Idaho, where it powers two pickup trucks and one Volkswagen Beetle, all of which run on 100 percent biodiesel fuel. The UI biodiesel program extracts oil from mustard seed, just as Butters expects to do. The fuel at the UI is mostly made from the oil in 500-gallon batches over a three-day period, although the university is now experimenting with a continuous production process.

Soybeans can be used as an oil source for biodiesel, as can waste fats from restaurants and rendering plants. Although there is no local gas station that sells biodiesel to the public in the Moscow-Pullman area, there is one in Spokane, Thompson said.

Butters emphasized that biodiesel could help make local farmers more energy independent. “It’s liberating to think that I can grow my own fuel, or at least part of it. Something like in the old days when farmers had a wood lot where they were growing their own firewood,” she said.