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Squeezing sunflowers
Dove Creek plant begins process to create cooking oil
Herald Staff Writer
Photo by JERRY McBRIDE/Herald photos
Click image to enlarge
Photo by JERRY McBRIDE/Herald photos
David Fisher watches one of two oil presses as it squeezes the last drop of oil from sunflower seeds at the plant Thursday. San Juan Bioenergy originally planned to make biodiesel from sunflowers, but with the changing economy, it now processes oil for cooking.
The plant began squeezing oil from sunflower seeds last month, but it also turns sunflower stems, leaves, heads and hulls into usable products.
"We figured it was going to be a five-year process when we started planning not quite five years ago," CEO Jeff Berman said Thursday while leading a tour of the facility. "And here we are."
Oil production begins when a pair of 2,500-bushel hoppers at the rear of the plant feed raw material into a cleaner that separates stems, leaves and heads from the seeds. A sunflower seed by weight is 15 percent hull, 35 percent oil and 50 percent solid material.
In the next step, seeds and hulls are separated, with the seeds passing through an extruder and a centrifuge on the way to becoming unrefined oil. Oil destined for food processing is sold as is to a refinery to be refined, bleached and deodorized. The refinery also reduces the acid and phosphate contents of the oil.
San Juan Bioenergy started as a cooperative to produce biodiesel fuel. But with changes in the economy, it reorganized in late 2006 and became a for-profit entity with its current name. The enterprise has 58 investors who contributed $1.5 million, as well as financial backing from the Small Business Administration, the Commercial Bank of Colorado and the state's Region 9 Economic Development District. It also received grants from the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
The company, with 12 full-time employees and several part-timers, has contracts to buy sunflower seed from 40 growers, most of them within a 50-mile radius, Berman said. But he is talking to growers from as far afield as Steamboat Springs and the San Luis Valley.
San Juan Bioenergy still can produce automotive fuel, Ber-man said. "If there are incentives and market conditions are right, we can use our oil for biodiesel." Biodiesel operations would be housed in a separate building on the property here.
At the moment, all oil production is headed to food processors. At peak periods, the plant can run through 50 tons of seed a day, the equivalent of 4,000 gallons of oil.
If organic sunflower seeds are processed, the system is flushed to avoid contamination, Ber-man said.
The oatmeal-like residue left when oil is squeezed from seeds is put through a pelletizer to become livestock feed. Among her duties, chemist Kathleen Parish frequently tests the meal for oil content.
"The less oil, the better," Berman said. "We need all the oil we can extract as oil."
The sunflower heads, stems and leaves left behind during the initial separation process and the hulls are being stored for the present. When a gassifier fires up next week, the leaves, stems, heads and hulls will be turned into gas to fire a boiler for building heat or to run an 85-kilowatt generator to produce electricity.
"We'd like to change our contracts with growers to allow more 'dockage' (extraneous material such as leaves, stems and heads) for which they are penalized now," Berman said. "We can use the dockage in the gassifier."
daler@durangoherald.com
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