Green Options » grease

Biodiesel Boom Spurs Theft of Nasty, Used Fry-O-Lator Grease

Nick Chambers — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:49:34 +0000

Rotting, leftover fryer grease has turned into gold in the race to our energy future — and thieves have taken notice.

It’s early in the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning. A group of Northern California pseudohippies just finished a game of Zonk — or rather, the game just stopped because somebody quoted a line from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and everybody forgot what they were doing.

Yet, by a stroke of luck, the conversation about Harold and Kumar reminds the group of their real reason for staying up so late. They pack into a truck and head down to the local fast food joint looking to load up — but it’s not the food they’re loading up on, it’s the nasty, half-rotted, leftover fryer grease.

Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled

Clayton B. Cornell — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:11:27 +0000

Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with biodiesel, but how much do we really know?

While biodiesel is easily the most popular alternative fuel available, it’s commonly misunderstood or misrepresented by inaccurate information. Since the most frequent question I get is, “So what exactly is biodiesel, anyway?“, I decided to write a tome covering all the basics—a one stop shop for all your biodiesel- related questions.

It’s been exactly one year since I published the first Biodiesel Mythbuster on GreenOptions.com, and its popularity made a sequel inevitable. By way of a short introduction, here’s what I wrote last year:

Portland’s Grease Wars: Battling for Biodiesel-Bound Cooking Oil

Clayton B. Cornell — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:06:50 +0000

Used-cooking-oil, the golden-brown waste product left over from making French-fries, doesn’t strike most of us as a particularly valuable commodity.

But recycled grease represents a source of cheap energy to some, one that can be converted to biodiesel or used directly as a substitute for diesel fuel. Having collected waste oil for both of these ends, I can tell you I’ve always had a nagging suspicion that one day the ‘free’ ride would come to a screeching halt. It just wasn’t clear how soon it would end.

Some parts of the country are now facing fierce competition over this generally unknown but ubiquitous local resource. The Associated Press has dubbed it the “Grease Wars”:

Recycled cooking oil has traditionally been sold for use in cattle feed and cosmetics. But the segment going to biofuels has grown in recent years to account for about 20 percent of the used oil market, said Tyson Keever, co-founder of Sequential Pacific Biofuels, the state’s largest manufacturer of biodiesel.

Portland’s oil peddlers are now fighting over grease worth as much as $1.20 a gallon. “You have processors now in the metro area who are looking at using that grease for biodiesel primarily,” said Mike McCallum, president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant Association. “There are restaurants who are being solicited for the use of the grease and are getting some money for it.” The result in the long run may be more expensive biodiesel at the pump.