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Jevans@pickenssentinel.com
PICKENS COUNTY - The county biodiesel fuel program will be expanding soon, saving the county money while cleaning its air, according to officials.
County Administrator J. Chappell Hurst recently gave County Council an update on the program.
Converting vegetable oil into biodiesel for all county trucks could save the county more than $500,000 a year in fuel costs, Hurst said.
The county is considering the purchase of a batch processor that would process 240,000 gallons of vegetable oil per year.
"This processor includes all the latest technology," Hurst said. "There's limited waste products that would produced from this."
The processor will cost the county about $100,000 Hurst said.
Details of the purchase should be worked out by the end of the week, he said.
The program originally used waste vegetable oil, such as the oil leftover from deep fryers, to create the biodiesel, but now officials are considering switching over from waste vegetable oil to virgin oil to operate its trucks, Hurst said.
"Virgin oil is much cleaner," he said. "There's less byproducts, and the overall cost per gallon of the fuel produced is approximately the same as using waste oil."
County officials have been testing the process in recent weeks.
"We've had no problems," Hurst said. "We're getting very close to being able to proceed with this project."
The expansion would include the purchases of two 16,000-gallon storage tanks and a 6,000 gallon storage tank.
The oil would be imported, and county tankers would be used to transport it to Pickens County from a port, Hurst said.
Hurst anticipates using the virgin oil process will cost the county $2.30/gallon.
A building currently under construction at the Solid Waste Department could house the processor.
The processor should take about 60 days to install, Hurst said.
"Once it is installed, we can begin producing," he said.
Should the county decide to expand its program even further and upgrade the equipment and tanks, the manufacturer will swap out the equipment, Hurst said.
"If we wanted to just purchase a million-gallon unit, which is what I think we should do, we could in essence trade it in and get our money back," he said.
Once operational, the county will use around 230,000 gallons of the processed oil a year.
"We would initially have about 10,000 gallons, which would allow other entities to use it," Hurst said.
Clemson Area Transit officials are interested in participating in the biodiesel program.
"They use around a 160,000 gallons of oil," Hurst said.
Councilman Tom Ponder said the recycling program's benefits are numerous.
"If we can get this program going, we'll benefit in a lot of different ways economically, but also in the performance of our vehicles," Ponder said.
Hurst agreed.
"Biodiesel's about 60 percent cleaner than regular diesel fuel," he said. "It extends the life of an engine by about 10 percent because it has better lubricating abilities."
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