CNHI News Service

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -- Record fuel prices got you down? Can't figure out how to cut costs? Take a green lesson from Merrimack College.

The small liberal arts school north of Boston has cooked up a new way to cut expenses by blending cooked vegetable oil with diesel fuel to power 25 of its diesel-dependent maintenance vehicles and machines, ranging from lawn mowers to a dump truck.

Bob Coppola, the college's director of physical plant, estimated the oddball mix will save about $10,000 a year in fuel costs. An added benefit, he said, is a trace of French fry scent emitted by the vehicles across the campus.

"There's no downside," Coppola said. "We save dollars and reduce our carbon footprint."

Coppola said the idea came to him when he saw a Discovery Channel show about using vegetable oil for fuel. That led to an Internet search and more information about the possibility of blending it with diesel fuel.

Two months of trial and error led to the winning formula of 80 percent diesel fuel and 20 percent used vegetable oil. He also learned the vehicles had to be kept warm in a garage in the winter because vegetable oil is thicker than diesel fuel and thus solidfies when cold.

Coppola said the cooked vegetable oil comes from the college's cafeteria, which uses 1,200 gallons per year. It is filtered numerous times to remove flour, batter and other cooking elements before it goes into a tank for heating to 120 degrees. Then it is transferred to another tank, where the diesel fuel is added and made ready for pumping into the various vehicles.

Coppola said the low-cost fuel idea gave his department something new to concentrate on -- a college experiment outside of the science labs.

"It has been a fun project," he said. "It gives us a chance to do a different type of work."

Coppola's only concern is if the cafeteria could suddenly go healthy and cut down on fried food.

But he isn't too worried. He quipped that the demand for french fries might well increase now that they fragrant the campus.

Drake Lucas writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass.