Vt. Farmer Helps Others Produce Biofuels
After learning to make biofuel to use on his own farm, John Williams has expanded his business to help others create their own energy. For Williamson, there’s a diversified income stream. For his neighbors, there’s new access to renewable energy.
 services to nearby farms such as Clear Brook Farm and True Love Farm. They have even helped to harvest pennycress, an experimental oilseed crop for Tiashoke Farm in Easton, New York.</p><p>State Line presses oilseeds for each of these farms as well as Lawes Ag in Brandon, Vermont, and Wood’s Market Garden in Brandon, Vermont. Williamson also receives unique pressing requests for smaller scale producers, including soybeans for a sheep farm in Massachusetts and safflower for a cosmetics company in New York City. The biodiesel processing equipment is used to make fuel for most of these and several other farms and also presses oil for food products.</p><p>State Line Farm Biofuels strives for a closed-loop system, meaning that all inputs are sourced from the farm and all outputs are recycled into the process or elsewhere on the farm. “We take a long view on biofuels while remembering simplicity, re-use and self-sustenance have a long history on Vermont farms,” Williamson said. “A hundred years ago all farms were growing their own fuel.”</p><p><!--break-->To start, the stainless steel biodiesel processor is built from salvaged brewing tanks and repurposed dairy vacuum line.</p><p>The diesel fuel for farm equipment comes from oilseeds grown and pressed on the farm, with the meal helping to feed livestock. Solar collectors and other waste streams provide the heat needed for making fuel. The bio-barn was built into the hillside to allow for gravity feed of materials. It uses a passive solar design to harness the sun’s warmth in the winter but provide shade in the summer.</p><p>Glycerin is a by-product from producing biodiesel, and Williamson installed a waste-oil boiler and intends to use glycerin as fuel. The heat from this boiler will be used to dry grains, to drive the reaction that turns oil into biodiesel, and to recover alcohol used in the process.</p><p><div class=)
 from sweet sorghum to do it in the future.</p><p><em>Infrastructure development, research, analysis, and support to State Line Biofuels have been provided by the Vermont Bioenergy Initiative and UVM Extension with funding secured by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy and the U.S. Department of Energy. More information about bioenergy work in Vermont is available at </em><a href=)
www.VermontBioenergy.com.Rachel Carter is the communications director at the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, a non-profit organization created by the state of Vermont to help develop Vermont’s sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and forest product businesses. A homesteader, she resides in Plainfield, Vermont.
