Stinkweed may provide sweet option for fuel

Albany, N.Y. —- The request caught dairy farmer Brian Ziehm off guard: Would he devote an acre of his fields near the Vermont line this fall to grow stinkweed?

“It was like, ‘What the heck? I’ve been trying to get rid of these things for 30 years. Now you want me to plant them?’ “

But Ziehm happily agreed to grow the hardy weed called field pennycress —- aka stinkweed —- to help test a potential new source of fuel for the booming biodiesel market. A handful of fields around upstate New York will be planted with pennycress this month under the pilot program launched by an Albany-based biodiesel company, Innovation Fuels Inc.

Past promises of cheap fuel grown on American soil have sometimes become, um, stuck in the weeds as prices for commodities such as corn and soybean oil rose. But a number of researchers believe that this winter weed with oily little seeds has an advantage in that it is not a food crop.

“Our intention is to create a crop that has a niche and does not displace anything else that is already growing,” said Steve Vaughn, a plant physiologist with the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill.

Biodiesel, as the name implies, is a fuel derived from vegetable oils or animal fats that can power diesel engines and be used for heating. It also can be blended with petroleum diesel. Biodiesel production has skyrocketed with the spike in fossil fuel prices, from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 500 million gallons last year, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

Biodiesel can be produced from animal fat, used cooking oil and a host of plants, though most biodiesel in the United States comes from soybean oil. Soybeans, like corn, are a commodity in demand for food and fuel. Prices for soybean oil have more than doubled since 2005, giving the industry added incentive to experiment with other potential sources of fuel.

“The rise in commodity prices has really driven us to focus on other alternatives,” said John Fox, Innovation’s chief executive officer. Innovation relies primarily on animal fat to make biodiesel at its Newark, N.J. refinery.

As biodiesel researchers look for ways to increase soybean yields, they also are looking at alternative fuel sources ranging from winter canola to algae. A few promising candidates are weeds, which are attractive to growers for the same reasons they exasperate suburban homeowners: They sprout fast and they are aggressive.

Farmers in warmer climates around the world are looking at a plant called jatropha, and in Oregon this summer, they planted camelina sativa, sometimes called false flax.