By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — This year’s Indiana State Fair is a memory by now, but local soybean growers may be glad to know it supplied more of their income through biodiesel usage.
This is the first year North American Midway Entertainment (NAME) used a B5 biodiesel blend – 5 percent soy biodiesel, 95 percent petroleum diesel – in its nine generators powering nearly 50 rides and booths at the fair’s midway. Patriot Fuels, LLC President Jay Pope explained NAME wanted to do it in 2006, but that supplier Integrity Biofuels, just getting started, had some production problems at the time.
“They’re the only ones that we’ve bought from,” Pope said of Integrity, which manufactures B100 soy biodiesel from local soybean processing. “In central Indiana, they’re the only (suppliers), I think. Which is fine by me – they’ve been real good to work with.”
During the 12 days of the fair, Pope estimated those nine generators burned 15,000 gallons of off-road biodiesel (a red ultra low sulfur blend on which highway taxes do not have to be paid), using approximately 750 gallons of soy biodiesel distributor Patriot blended into the mix. NAME CEO Mike Williams said B5 costs about five cents more per gallon than diesel, which he described as “marginal” in overall operating costs.
Williams has been handling the State Fair midway since 1987, and he was approached two years ago by the Indiana Soybean Alliance about burning biodiesel. “We were really unfamiliar with biofuels,” he said.
Interested in burning a cleaner fuel, he contacted Caterpillar, which manufactured his equipment, and talked with other biodiesel users about their experiences. NAME started using the fuel this spring, mainly in its Midwestern events because biodiesel is more readily available there.
NAME works approximately 160 events each year, Williams said, in 22 states east of the Rockies and Canada. Indiana’s state fair – the first one at which NAME has burned biodiesel for the midway – is about halfway through the fair season. So far, he estimated NAME has used biodiesel to power midways for a little under one-third of this year’s events.
“I think that’ll increase each year as availability becomes more common and people start using it,” Williams added. “We’re certainly in tune with agriculture, because we do so many county fairs and state fairs.”
“When you go to a B20, obviously, your cost per gallon will go up,” said Pope, unable to speculate if NAME might use a higher-soy blend next year. He opined the cost is probably the major thing keeping potential customers from using biodiesel.
Patriot, based in Indianapolis, has been in business for about a year, blending and delivering two million gallons of biofuel as well as gasoline and diesel in its first year. It is a young company, but Pope worked for another fuel provider to the fair for many years before launching Patriot. About a decade ago, his previous employer began providing biodiesel for the fair’s tractor-shuttles, supplying it for the shuttles’ first few years.
At that time, he said biodiesel had to largely be shipped in from faraway places such as Oklahoma. “The availability of the product is a lot better than it used to be,” Pope added.
Integrity actually gets in on another part of the fair as well, since Vice President John Whittington said it also supplies B100 to CountryMark – its single biggest customer – which now supplies fuel for the shuttles along with Co-Alliance LLP.
“I thought it was kind of cool to be involved on both sides, of the midway and the shuttles, this year,” he said.
This is the first project on which Integrity and Patriot have jointly worked, and both speak as if they would like to do so more often.
“I’ll urge him to do a little higher percentage next year,” Whittington half-joked of trying to sell Pope more B100 to blend with diesel for the 2008 fair.
This farm news was published in the Aug. 22, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
