Mechanic cooks up a money-saver
Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2008
HELENA-WEST HELENA — With diesel prices soaring, farmers are eager to economize on fuel use.
Tracy Griffin and his father, Buron Griffin Jr., who farm in Phillips County south of Helena-West Helena, turned to Bill Kennerly for help in reducing their irrigation costs.
Kennerly, the owner of Malvern-based Arkansas Vegetable Fuel Systems Inc., has modified five of the Griffins’ diesel irrigation pumps to burn used vegetable oil, which Kennerly collects, filters and then markets for a dollar less than the comparable price of off-road diesel fuel.
On-road diesel fuel was selling Wednesday in Arkansas for an average of $ 4. 705 a gallon, up 70 percent from a year ago, when it sold for $ 2. 773 a gallon, according to AAA. Off-road diesel, which is exempt from federal and state excise taxes, now sells for about 47 cents a gallon less than on-road diesel.
High fuel prices have led some farmers to “supplement some of their pumping requirements with solar and wind energy,” said Andy Smith, external affairs director for the Irrigation Association, a national irrigation trade group.
“Everybody’s thinking about alternative means to pump water right now,” Smith said.
Tracy Griffin said Friday, “We’re just trying to survive” as Kennerly demonstrated a new 85 horsepower Isuzu engine that burns diesel fuel at first and, once the engine has warmed up, converts to used vegetable oil.
The hybrid engine pumps water from a new, 120-foot-deep well and powers a generator that provides electricity to a new 1, 114-foot-long center-pivot irrigation system, which waters crops from overhead as the equipment rotates around a pivot. Completing one revolution in roughly two days, the center pivot can provide about three-quarters of an inch of water to the 100-acre soybean field, Griffin said.
“You’ve got to be 100 percent irrigated” to produce reliably high yields, Griffin said.
The Griffins now operate about 40 irrigation pumps to provide water to their rice and soybeans, he said.
Statewide, about 4. 7 million acres of farmland were irrigated in 2005 with 8. 3 billion gallons per day of surface water and groundwater, according to a recent report issued by the U. S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. Approximately 84 percent of the water, or 6. 9 billion gallons per day, is pumped from aquifers, with most going to rice, soybeans, cotton, corn and grain sorghum crops in the form of flood, furrow and center-pivot irrigation.
Traditionally, about 45 percent of Arkansas’ agricultural irrigation pumps have operated on diesel fuel and 45 percent on electricity, the balance using propane, natural gas or gasoline, said Phil Tacker, an engineer with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service who specializes in irrigation systems. With rising fuel prices, “it’s now probably more like 60 percent electric and 40 percent diesel,” Tacker said.
Arkansas’ farmers have been improving the efficiency of their irrigation systems, primarily by adding recovery systems that recirculate water, said Charolette Bowie, state irrigation engineer with the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The Griffins had Kennerly convert one Caterpillar diesel irrigation pump last year, and the results pleased them so much that they had Kennerly convert four more engines this year. Kennerly charged about $ 3, 000 to make these conversions, but he said he will need to charge closer to $ 4, 000 in the future to cover his costs.
Tracy Griffin estimated that the newly converted Isuzu engine will burn 2, 500-3, 000 gallons of fuel during a growing season. So, he expects to recoup his upfront engine-conversion costs during the first year of operation. Griffin and Kennerly say the modified engines run at least as efficiently on vegetable oil as they do on diesel fuel.
A mechanic by trade, Kennerly said his “mobile veggie burner” system can be adapted for use anywhere diesel engines are found. He also has converted a number of diesel cars and trucks to burn used vegetable fuel.
Arkansas Vegetable Fuel Systems has a contract with Arkansas’ 22 prisons to collect their used cooking oils, roughly half animal fat and half vegetable oil, Kennerly said. No money changes hands; the oils are Kennerly’s as long as he collects them, he said.
The animal fats are filtered and sold to an animal-feed manufacturer, Kennerly said. The vegetable oil is refined more thoroughly, ultimately passing through a onemicron screen, he said. One micron is a millionth of a meter or one inch divided into 25, 400 parts. A grain of salt measures 100 microns.
Most of Arkansas Vegetable Fuel Systems’ current used-vegetable-oil supply will be consumed by the Griffins and by Kennerly’s brother in Malvern, who operates several large diesel trucks that use the alternative fuel, Kennerly said. As a result, the company is seeking more sources of used vegetable oil.
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