CMU Grads Grow Sunflowers For Biodiesel

KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh)
Oct 14, 2008 8:44 pm US/Eastern

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Where you once saw vacant lots -- strewn with garbage and broken glass -- you may find something new in the neighborhood -- sunflowers. Acres of sunflowers growing in Lawrenceville, Hazelwood, East Liberty and Larimer.

Why all the sunflowers? It's the seeds.

"An acre of sunflowers can produce close to 100 gallons of straight vegetable oil per year and so the hope is that these seeds can be crushed into vegetable oil and processed into bio-deisel," says Andrew Butcher, one of the founders a company called G-Tech.

G-Tech was started by some recent Carnegie Mellon grads, who want to turn the problem of abandoned urban properties into part of the solution to the nation's energy crisis -- by crushing the sunflower seeds into sunflower oil and converting that into clean burning bio-fuel.

"Definitely cleaner than gas," says Butcher. "Emissions from bio-deisel are know to have an 80 percent better impact on carbon emissions."

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