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Congressman Bob Etheridge (right) visited Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham County Campus Sept. 1 to receive an update on the college’s green programs. One of his stops was the college’s biofuels lab, where Andrew McMahan, biofuels program coordinator, demonstrated the extraction of oil from canola seed. The seed is being used in a closed-loop biofuels production and use project. Canola and sunflower seed will be grown at the sustainable agriculture program’s land lab at the campus. The oil will be extracted, with the dry meal used for animal feed and the oil used in the coming culinary arts program. After the culinary arts program has used it, the oil will be cleaned and used as fuel in the land lab’s tractor, completing the loop. Etheridge said the college is in the forefront of training the workforce for the coming green economy.

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Congressman Bob Etheridge (front, right) visited Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham County Campus Sept. 1 to receive an update on the college’s green programs. Hilary Heckler (front left), land lab manager, explains the sustainable agriculture program. Also taking part in the visit were (back, from left) Andrew McMahan, biofuels program coordinator; Laura Lauffer, green building program coordinator; John Delafield, sustainable agriculture instructor; college President Bud Marchant; George Lucier, chairman of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners and a college trustee; Chatham Provost Karen Allen; and (behind Etheridge) William Munn, the Congressman’s district representative. Etheridge also visited the biofuels lab and saw the excavation for the new Sustainable Technologies Building and Chatham Community Library.

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Congressman Bob Etheridge (back, right) visited Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham County Campus’s green programs Sept. 1 and was impressed by what he saw. In the biofuels lab, Andrew McMahan (left), biofuels coordinator, demonstrates the making of oil from canola seeds. Getting a close look at the process are (from front, right) Laura Lauffer, the college’s green building program coordinator; Hilary Heckler, land lab manager; and Etheridge. He also visited the land lab and saw the excavation for the new Sustainable Technologies Building and Chatham Community Library.

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Congressman Bob Etheridge (right) visited Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham County Campus Sept. 1 to receive an update on the college’s green programs. Karen Allen, the college’s provost for Chatham County, talked about the new Sustainable Technologies Building and Chatham Community Library, shown on an architect’s rendering of the campus. Both buildings are being constructed to high energy efficiency standards. The congressman also saw the college’s biofuels laboratory and the sustainable agriculture land lab. He said the college is in the forefront of training the workforce for the coming green economy.