6-9 IAN French Fry Fuel

French fry oil on campus now fuels fleet of food vans

SODEXO, THE COMPANY that provides all University of Idaho food on campus, has a new fleet of trucks that run on a 5 percent biodiesel blend produced on campus from oil used for French fries and other fried foods.

 About every six weeks, Joe Thompson, with the University of Idaho’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, collects 50 gallons of used food oils, carts them across campus to the biofuels lab, cleans and filters them, and then converts the cooking oil into about 50 gallons of biodiesel—and sells it back to Sodexo. I asked if the trucks run normally on the 95% blend and was pleasantly surprised by his answer. “Yeah, they run normally. In fact we have trucks that run well on 100% biodiesel.”

 Dr. Thompson admits that making biodiesel on a small scale like he is is not necessarily economical at current fuel prices. But that could change as prices rise. And they’re rising fast as we have recently seen. Another benefit is the sustainability of recycling the oil to fuel.

The University of Idaho campus also produces its own biodiesel for the Vandal Trolley that totes guests around campus on special occasions, and the Access Shuttle, which loops the campus daily to accommodate disabled and able-bodied students and faculty.