Feature Articles

Community Based Bio-Diesel

More Jobs for Rural America

By Michael David McGuire

Graham Towerton is very meticulous with his grammar and spelling… especially when it comes to any subject close to his heart like biodiesel development. Or… Bio-Diesel, as Towerton insists the proper spelling should be. "Society owes a real debt of gratitude to Rudolf Diesel and his engine invention," Towerton says as we drive fast on dusty back country roads of the Texas Panhandle oil country not far from his company's research and development headquarters in Amarillo. "By capitalizing the "D" in Bio-Diesel we honor the man and one of the single most important inventions that can lead America and the world to energy self-sufficiency."

I had met Graham Towerton and his associates in Amarillo a few months earlier when I was doing a series of stories on new technology entrepreneurs. Towerton and his firm, CustomChemPack, invited me back to have a deeper look into one of their pet projects… the development of a community based Bio-Diesel plant for Excel Biofuels in the West Texas town of Clarendon. The countryside in this part of the world is flat as can be, dry, dusty and… on this particular day… windy enough to knock you down. "If Rudolf Diesel's original vision had remained intact we would not be fighting foreign wars for oil and we would not be worrying about staking our national energy security on unreliable foreign sources. Diesel's engine… his design… was revolutionary and it was meant to run on plant derivatives like peanut oil or canola oil… sunflowers, palm oil… almost any pressed seed. The technology is even more viable today." Towerton is intense, excited and serious about the issue.

"See that… over there," Towerton is pointing to a line of oil well pump heads just north of where we are driving. "That's rare. That's domestic oil production and will most likely power a car right here in the States. But most of our oil and energy resources are coming from outside the country, which means that every time we fill up we are basically shipping money overseas. That money doesn't stay in the local community. That money doesn't do the local community any good. But…" Graham Towerton shakes a finger in the air for emphasis, "with community based Bio-Diesel production we can create energy self-sufficiency at home… while, at the same time, create an on-going agricultural market for farmers and jobs for the community. And best of all… done right with this new community based approach… the local community keeps all of their energy dollars right here in the local community."

Graham Towerton has a growing national reputation as a leader and innovator in the Bio-Diesel production field… an expertise that has taken him across a good bit of North America and around the world at a time when many large investment firms like Louis Dreyfus and others are turning big capital on big plans and big plants. One such plant recently opened to much fanfare in Claypool, Indiana after a capital investment of over $150 million. "These are big plants and this is a good thing… a step in the right direction," said Towerton. "But the overall capacity of these giant-size plants means that the produced Bio-Diesel has to be sold to larger out-of-area dealers… which means energy spent on transportation… and huge capital investments. Sometimes with large scale plants even the feed stock has to be imported from outside the region with added transportation and energy costs. This is where our team has the advantage." Towerton goes on to explain what he sees as his company's major innovation that can bring the cost of design and construction of a new Bio-Diesel plant down from about $1 per gallon of producing capacity to as low as fifty or sixty cents. "What this means is that small community based operations are now not only feasible… but highly desirable."

I feel somewhat like an awkward Chem 101 student as Graham Towerton explains the science behind the breakthrough that now makes it possible for local investors… with relatively small capital outlay… to design and build local Bio-Diesel plants with capacities as small as 50,000 to 10 million gallons. The plants can be built for as little as $500,000 and can be fully producing within three to six months and return everyone's original investment within three to five years. "The key," Towerton explains with his signature finger shake in the air, "is the use of an ultrasonic reactor technology that creates a highly cost-effective means of converting the standard batch Bio-Diesel reaction process into a continuous process. This greatly reduces operating costs in terms of methanol and catalyst usage… while offering continuous control over Bio-Diesel quality."

I am trying to write furiously in my little Mead spiral memo book. I make a quick side note that we've just whisked past Goodnight, Texas (POP 18) and that we are only 18 miles from our Clarendon destination, a green oasis in the normally dry Panhandle. "Let me make it simpler," Towerton says, gesturing to my frantic memo pad page turning. "Point One - If local farmers in the community can raise as little as half a million dollars from among themselves…which in most communities is easily done… then they will have a business that will buy their oil seed crops. Point Two - To crush the seeds for vegetable oil, we will build a small scale seed crushing facility that will create additional local jobs. Point Three - The local Bio-Diesel production is bought by the local farmers to power their needs for operating farm equipment and vehicles. Maybe I am making this too simple… but it really is a simple plan that keeps local dollars circulating through the local community." Towerton is very clear and confident in his message. "Okay… here's Point Four - The by-products of Bio-Diesel production… like glycerin and surfactants…can have far more value than the actual Bio-Diesel itself."

I ask about the word "surfactant" and Towerton answers "Soap, basically… hundreds and hundreds of industrial and agricultural uses… specialty, high-value added uses, which means even greater profitability for the local plant owner/operator. And best of all, Bio-Diesel production uses less than one third the amount of water that it takes to make a gallon of ethanol. Bio-Diesel production is more environmentally friendly, more energy efficient to produce and more easily developed at an affordable scale by people in the local community."

"You see," Towerton continues, "most of the so-called Bio-Diesel innovations are now coming out of technology developed by oil refineries and petrochemical plants. These technologies are big, cumbersome and expensive… and they don't do people in a place like this any good." Towerton points straight ahead to a hill on the right where Clarendon College provides community-college education to local and regional students, signaling our arrival into Clarendon. "The old ways of doing things come from the early work back in the 1940's at Palmolive and other corporate research labs. Certainly effective, but expensive, old technology that was in use through the 1970's, 80's and even today… meaning that this old way of doing things mandates a plant size of no smaller than, say, 40 million gallons. That's just out of reach for the pocket-book of most folks but also very hard to develop on a sustainable basis from locally grown feed stocks."

Towerton drives me down the main drag of Clarendon…past the local Dairy Queen and "It'll Do" Motel… and into the core of Clarendon's main business district. "A plant like the one that we will build here in Clarendon will add jobs to the local community and be a huge stimulus to the local economy. I take a lot of pride in that." And indeed, he does… showing me around Clarendon much like a car collector would show off his car or a dog breeder might show off new puppies.

Clarendon appears to be your typical small, squeaky clean Texas town…claiming bragging rights to be the first real town in the Texas Panhandle and having one of the oldest newspapers in Texas. I get a quick tour of Kenny's Barber Shop and Used Car Lot, the standing façade of the old Mulkey Picture Theater and a quick tour of the beautifully restored Donley County Courthouse… a real gem of late 19th century architecture. As we head to the Clarendon Steakhouse for their good old-fashioned home-style burgers, I get a sense that Graham Towerton is showing me the future… a bright future of energy freedom, energy security, jobs for local people and what Towerton might call a "circle of prosperity" for local communities. "We'll prove the point right here in Clarendon and elsewhere throughout rural America," Towerton says. "And as we do it here, we'll be showing people how to do it all across the country." I couldn't help but wonder if the other folks eating at the steakhouse knew at that moment that they were rubbing elbows with history.



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