Recently I embarked on quest to launch a biodiesel distribution coop in Durham, and the project made a great step forward today. I teamed up with Marc of Forests of the World who has been working on plans to start a biodiesel production plant in Durham. To get the distribution coop started, we are planning to rent a 500 Gallon tank (below) and space on this site in Durham on Ellis Rd. Today we got the platform ready and now we just have to find a way to move the 600 pound stainless steel tank across the gravel lot and onto the platform. The owner of the site has a forklift, but it cannot run on the gravel. We could set it on a trailer and the attach pulleys to the awning and hoist the beast up there.

The advantage of setting it up on the platform is that we can use gravity to distribute the biodiesel and avoid purchasing a pump. There are two places in the area that can deliver biodiesel with a tanker truck. Then all we need to do is open a valve at the bottom of the tank and fill’er up! The site is also in a good geographic location in the Triangle. It’s maybe a half-mile from one of the main freeways in Durham that connects to two Interstate Highways – I-85 and I-40. It is a 5-Minute drive from downtown Durham and 10 Minutes from Research Triangle Park.

An interesting feature of this site is that there are also other tanks literally lying around that could be cleaned up and added, if the demand is great enough. And of course there are these huge 10,000 Gallon tanks in the back, that could be restored to working order and used for biodiesel. Lots of growth potential. But first we have to get this 500 Gallon tank up and running.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2005 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Biodiesel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.