Instead of emitting the notoriously noxious black diesel smoke, the tractor now emits a much lighter colored exhaust with a smell more reminiscent of French fries than farm implements. That’s thanks to its soy-based biodiesel fuel, as the updated tractor helps the university take another step toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2035.
“A carbon-neutral campus is an inspiring vision,” said H. Oliver Gao, professor of engineering and director of Cornell’s Center for Transportation, Environment and Community Health, which helped create the project. “This was a good opportunity to engage engineering students, to gain hands-on experience, in a Cornell Living Laboratory project.”
As Jared Hibshman ’19 helped to set up the project last year, members of the Engineers for a Sustainable World group – Gregory Brumberg ’21, Lawrence Li ’21, Sophia Openshaw ’23, Sai Mallipedhi ’21 and Ian Starnes ’20 – spent the first weekend in March converting the 2005 John Deere 6715 tractor in the Farm Service Shop, operated by Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Cornell’s Ithaca Agricultural Experiment Station. The tractor is used in the university’s compost operation and for agricultural research support.
