Fed up with the spiralling cost of diesel fuel four Blayney farmers have decided to make their own out of used fish and chip oil.
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With diesel now selling for $1.43 a litre this cost is biting heavily into the cost of farm production with further hikes still to come as demand from China and India for all types of petroleum grows.
Cliff Kearney and Neville farmer Michael Spira discussed this problem late in 2005 and decided that they had to do something about it. Teaming up with Ed Wilson from Forest Reefs and Eric Brown another Neville farmer they set out to build a distilling machine to meet their needs and also produce low cost fuel for other farmers. With spent cooking oil they said they can produce bio-diesel at about half the price at the pump.
The technology has been around for some time but until the current price of standard diesel fuel rose to its current retail price making bio-diesel has not been cost effective.
Together the four have spent $25,000 making their distilling plant at Cliff Kearney's property south of Blayney.
The machine has a capacity of 16,000 litres per week. Theirs is the only substantial bio-diesel producer between Swan Hill, Adelaide, Newcastle and a plant in western Sydney.
Cliff Kearney said one of the major benefits of bio-diesel is that it will lubricate engines and runs very cleanly.
Because their there is a limited supply of spent cooking oil the four plan putting hundreds of hectares of their own land down to canola planting. Their efforts have not gone unrecognised. Next week the Director of Health Sciences, Strategic Alliances & Evaluation with the NSW Department of Primary Industries Helen Scott-Orr will visit the plant. The department has been encouraging the production of bio-diesel.
