Butter Powered Trucks

Fats, oils and grease are increasingly reprocessed into biofeuls, a method that was put on display when a giant butter sculpture of Benjamin Franklin was melted and made into diesel. “Butter is not the fuel of the future, but it is possible to churn perfectly good diesel fuel out of it. ‘It was something we wanted to show could be done,’ said Michael J. Haas, a research biochemist at the United States Department of Agriculture. … The impetus was an 800-pound sculpture of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell. Each year the Pennsylvania Farm Show, held in Harrisburg, commissions a masterpiece made out of butter. In 2007, the organizers solicited suggestions for what to do with the work after the farm show ended. Dr. Haas submitted the idea of making biodiesel fuel out of it, and that is what was done. ‘It had never been reported in the scientific literature,’ he said.”