Oregon’s energy
entrepreneurs and innovations
Putting the biodiesel plant in the farmer’s
hands...literally
THE SITUATION
Crops to fuel biodiesel are being raised in Eastern Oregon, but
there are no biodiesel production plants east of the Cascades
and scant supplies at the pump. Meanwhile, farmers running
diesel pickups and tractors are prime potential consumers of
home-grown fuel.
THE NEW TECHNOLOGY
Oregon State University professor Goran Jovanovic has created
a credit card-sized biodiesel reactor that takes in canola oil
and alcohol and, using a catalyst in tiny microchannels,
produces biodiesel. In Wallowa County, Ethical Energy,
co-founded by Rick Weatherspoon and Gloria Garvin, is one of
several groups negotiating to buy Jovanovic’s technology
and use it at the center of a biodiesel system they’d
peddle to rural farmers. Ethical Energy would aggregate
hundreds of thousands of the cards into a mini-biodiesel
production unit the size of a suitcase. Farmers or communities
with access to canola, sunflower or other seed crops would
crush the seeds and then feed the oil into the suitcase
processing unit to produce enough biodiesel to fill their gas
tank or a storage tank in their barns or pickups.
DOES IT HAVE
JUICE?
So far, Jovanovic has only produced a test-tube worth of
biodiesel. But his idea has disruptive technology written all
over it. The micro-scale reactor promises major efficiencies
over industrial-scale biodiesel plants. If someone can turn it
into a usable, personal scale production unit, it could change
the way we produce fuel by putting the end user in control.
Garvin and Weatherspoon, who is a former engineer for defense
contractors and an Enterprise native, want to nail that killer
app. Wallowa County will be their proving ground. They are
testing high-oil-content sunflowers on a 40-acre plot in
Imnaha, while machinists look at materials to construct the
suitcase unit, a local oil company studies how to winterize the
biodiesel and Weatherspoon looks into manufacturing the units
in the county. “I’m trying to create a little
industry at the end of the road here,” says Weatherspoon,
who drives a ’99 Dodge Cummins diesel pickup himself.
“It’s not a slam dunk. But we’re just gonna
do it and see if it works.” Venture capitalists,
including OVP Venture Partners’ David Chen, have shown
interest in Jovanovic’s mini processor. Jovanovic still
needs to find a benign solid catalyst to replace the liquid
sodium hydroxide — a legally controlled substance —
that he’s currently using.
And should Weatherspoon get a license for the technology, he
needs
to cross a first production hurdle with a prototype of the
suitcase unit in the next nine months to fuel the test vehicle
— his pickup.
— Oakley Brooks
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