Gasoline costs about $3.25 a gallon in Utah County, which may make people pine for an alternative. A group of Brigham Young University students has found one -- a fuel source that grows on trees.

Students in the global projects and engineering class were asked to create fuel from materials that are found in Tonga. They ended up creating a process that turns coconut oil into biodiesel, and it will run more than just cars and trucks.

The new fuel could impact the entire Tongan economy.

Allyson Frankman, a Ph.D. student working with the class, said everything in the South Pacific island nation runs on diesel fuel, which must be imported.

The new process allows the Tongan people to create their own fuel using their own plentiful coconuts.

Randy Lewis, who taught the students, said there used to be a coconut oil market. Coconut oil was pushed out by soybean oil. Now the coconuts are just used for food, but the people use very few of them, and the rest of the coconuts fall to the ground and rot.

To make biodiesel out of coconuts, the students took the white meat, or copra, from the coconut and dried it. Then they ran the coconut through a press that extracts the oil, which is mixed with methanol and sodium hydroxide to form biodiesel.

The methanol and sodium hydroxide have to be imported, but it is much cheaper to import those chemicals than it is to import diesel fuel at the American equivalent of $4.20 a gallon.

Everything in Tonga, from water pumps to electricity, runs on diesel fuel, so it is important for the country.

"If they cannot afford the diesel, they have to go without clean water," Frankman said.

The students spent two weeks in Tonga earlier this month demonstrating their techniques to communities, high school students and government officials.

"The people were very exited that we were coming over there to show them this technology," Lewis said.

The students gained from the experience as well.

"They learned how to solve real-world problems that didn't have textbook answers," Lewis said. "They learned how to apply their engineering abilities in another country, which alone brought many challenges."

The students had to get the equipment shipped to Tonga and then through customs, which proved challenging.

"We had about 150 million things that went wrong," said student Jacob Jones. "Just nothing, not one thing, went as we expected it to. That was extremely challenging, but it worked."

When the group got to Tonga, they poured a biodiesel mixture that had worked in the States into an engine, and it didn't work. The students had to put their heads together to solve the dilemma. After realizing that the fuel had somehow gotten water in it, the students got the engine running.

The students also learned to work with others who had different engineering backgrounds, which happens in few classes at BYU.

Frankman said the students had to learn how to work across cultures. She said the most rewarding part of the project was watching the students become culturally aware and begin to understand that they can help people.

"Most of our students won't work in Tonga again," Frankman said. "Engineers will undoubtedly work worldwide."

Jones and four others turned the idea into a business plan. They won the BYU social venture innovation competition and a $4,000 prize with the possibility of more money if the project works.

Jones plans to keep working with the family who came to BYU professors asking for help. The group hopes to turn the technology into a business and take coconut biodiesel to many islands in Tonga.

Lewis said the global projects and engineering class, which was started for this project, will continue. Next year students will be able to help solve problems in Peru.

Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 at blusk@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.