According to this article in the Martinsville Bulletin, a local convenience store chain owner has taken on some rather serious problems head on. He is contracting with local farmers who formerly grew tobacco to instead plant canola that he will then process himself into biodiesel to sell at the diesel pumps at his stores. By doing so he is providing a profitable use for empty fields, improving the environment and reducing our dependence on foreign fuels.

Price and his partners started Red Birch Energy to produce biodiesel about a year ago. He said several factors got him interested in the project, not the least of which is America’s dependence on foreign oil.

With foreign oil, 70 cents of every dollar goes to countries the United States is in conflict with, Price said. In fact, the American consumer pays for such conflicts twice, both in military spending and in the higher fuel prices they cause.

But for every dollar spent on local biodiesel, he said, 90 cents will stay in the area, and the rest will go to taxes.

Price also said biodiesel is better for the environment, which is attractive to him because he has children, and “we want to leave this place better than we found it.”

Price will also get a federal tax credit of $1.00 a gallon on the B20 (20% bio) he will produce off of the locally grown canola plants. Production is expected to be 1,000 gallons a day to start with. In the early stages, until the canola crop comes in, the biodiesel will be produced from waste oil from local restaurants.

Canola is a plant created through plant breeding from rapeseed, which had been used as a fuel source in lamps and as a cooking oil for hundreds of years. During World War II it was used as a lubricant on ships causing Canada to expand its production. After the war Canadian’s worked toward making the plant healthier and more useful. The result of selective breeding was called Canola, from CANadian Low Acid.

In an age where every company seems to be in a rush to subcontract, import and offshore everything until nobody knows where anything was made or who by, it is refreshing to see someone take the initiative and not wait around for someone else to do it.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 5:54 am and is filed under Alternative Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.