Stuart company enters biofuel market with Viesel
Photo by Juan Dale Brown
Charles Salvante, general manager of Viesel in Stuart, talks about the tanks full of cooking oil that will be turned into biofuel that can be used in diesel vehicles.
STUART — About two years ago, Stu Lamb, chief executive officer of Stuart-based Cooke’s Environmental Services, got fed up with America’s reliance on foreign oil, roller coaster fuel prices and the carbon footprint of fossil fuel.
So he decided to jump into the frying pan — almost literally — and do something about it.
After 18 months of research and development, Stuart became the “world headquarters” of Viesel, a high-grade biofuel made from recycled vegetable oil that is equivalent to No. 2 petroleum diesel fuel and can be used in any application utilizing diesel engines, Lamb said.
Lambe sends his tanker trucks to more than 300 restaurants and institutions throughout Florida, including Palm Beach International Airport, Florida’s Turnpike service plazas, and Indian River State College, to collect used vegetable oil and return it to the plant at 4401 S.E. Commerce Avenue.
There, oil that previously put the fry into French fries flows through a 10-day refining process using solar ambient heating, a Viesel-fuel-fired furnace and several stages of filtering.
After refining, the plant turns out 50,000 gallons of the amber-colored fuel per week and recycles all the byproducts, said plant manager Charley Salvante.
“Nothing is wasted here,” Salvante said. “Water (boiled off in refining) goes back to Martin County utilities and recycled as drinking water.”
The semi-solid byproduct filtered by the process also finds its way back to market as an ingredient for animal feed, Salvante said.
Lamb said the fuel has the same heating value as No. 2 diesel, emits no sulfur dioxide and burns cleaner than its petroleum counterpart with 78 percent less carbon dioxide and 48 percent less carbon monoxide emissions.
Over the last year, the City of Stuart tested the fuel in one of its sanitation trucks and now city officials have decided to convert another eight trucks to Viesel, said city assistant public works director David Peters.
“We’ve been pleased,” Peters said. “There have been no real maintenance issues. The fuel mileage is about break even — maybe just a bit better than diesel, and it’s better for the environment, so we decided to go forward.”
Peters said the city expects to save about $12,000 by using Viesel, and once conversion costs are absorbed, the savings will increase, he said.
“(Lamb) came to us and asked us to try it, and it works. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us,” Peters said.
In addition to Stuart, the company sells to truck fleet owners, local truckers and industry, with European exports on the horizon, Lambe said.
“We’re currently in discussions with (Florida Power & Light Co.) and some large paper companies. We can sell to 6,000-gallon tankers or a five-gallon can,” he said.
The company sells the biofuel at just under $2 per gallon, still 10 to 20 cents off current market prices according to AAA’s latest figures and well off last year’s price of nearly $5 per gallon.
Lamb said he sees the country’s foreign oil dependence as not only a brewing financial storm with environmental implications, but a national security issue as well.
“Every responsible citizen needs to think about alternatives,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
