NY State Fair butter sculpture to be turned into biodiesel fuel

This year's New York State Fair has brought something new to the time-honored butter sculpture. It has turned the tradition green. When the fair ends, the state university's College of Environmental Science and Forestry will convert the sculpture's 900 pounds of butter into biodiesel for the college's vehicles — enough to power five round trips to the Adirondacks.

The butter sculpture has been a popular attraction during the fair since 1969.

Since 1969, it has been the centerpiece of the Dairy Products Building, which houses the Rainbow Milk Bar, the Dairy Princess Booth, special dairy drinks, and an array of dairy products.

College scientists, in collaboration with the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council, Inc., and the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency, will make the butter into biodiesel at the production facility on the ESF campus.

"Thirty-seven percent of the college's fleet runs on some form of renewable energy, including biodiesel," said ESF President Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr. "Using the butter sculpture is a unique way to fuel the ESF fleet."
After the fair’s 12-day run ends on Labor Day, the butter will be brought to the ESF biodiesel production facility.

He said it takes about nine pounds of butter to make a gallon of biodiesel, so this year’s 900-pound sculpture should yield around 96 gallons of biodiesel. (If left in stick form, 900 pounds of butter is enough to cover more than six football fields, according to the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council, Inc.)

The work is an extension of a project already in place at ESF, in which students collect used fryer oil from dining facilities at neighboring Syracuse University and use it to make biodiesel fuel for the college fleet.

“Dairy farmers are the original environmentalists, recycling nutrients and water on their land, so it makes sense that this annual tribute to them is itself finding new life in fuel, rather than being discarded,“ says Skip Hardie, a second-generation dairy farmer, from Lansing, N.Y. “This is a fitting way to mark the sculpture’s 40th anniversary.”

Dennis Nett / The Post-StandardFor the annual butter sculpture at the New York State Fair, artist Jim Pelton created "Cow Jumping Over the Moon."

This year's butter sculpture re-enacts the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle" in 900 pounds of butter, with the cow jumping over the moon, plus the little dog, dish and spoon.

It is the third time the fair has gone with the cow jumping over the moon theme. The first butter sculpture 40 years ago featured the theme, and on the 20th anniversary, the theme was repeated. This year is the 40th anniversary