Green Options

Editor’s Note: This is Part One in a series of articles by John Rarrick examining how small businesses are turning to Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) to tighten their belts while simultaneously reducing their carbon footprints.

Like many small business owners, Jose Duarte, Chef/Owner of Taranta, in Boston, MA, is constantly looking for ways to control costs in an economic climate that has no sympathy for the little guy. Fortunately for Duarte, discovering ways to trim his operating overhead also led to a “greening of Taranta.”

“I was looking for ways to cut our costs and I stumbled upon an article about these people running their diesel cars and trucks on fryer oil. I figured that was a good place to start,” said Duarte.

Calculating that he could save a few thousand dollars a year on the fuel costs he incurred from daily runs to his seafood vendors, Duarte turned to Boston-based Green Grease Monkey for advice on converting the restaurant’s Chevy Silverado to run on WVO.

Now he recycles not only his own grease, but that of the  restaurants owned by several of his friends.

What was admittedly at first an experiment, turned into an obsession, with Duarte becoming increasingly more involved in the environmental impact of his business. After implementing a series of changes and upgrades to the restaurant, including an in-house carbonating system that enables them to make their own sparkling water supply, a recycling/composting program, and a move to utilizing more organic ingredients, Taranta received the City of Boston’s Green Business Award for 2008.

Drivers of WVO-powered cars will either love or hate the work of Boylston, Massachusetts-based Owl Power Company. Owl Power’s founder and CEO, James Peret, has developed and launched a product they call the Vegawatt, a fully automated cogeneration system for restaurants, designed to run on waste vegetable oil.

Peret’s team says the Vegawatt system is more than just a basic generator. The device, which is about the size of consumer-size refrigerator, includes a turn-key waste vegetable oil (WVO) refinery that automatically transforms even the most disgusting used cooking oil into fuel appropriate to supply up to 25% of the electrical power a restaurant requires for lights and hot water.

I had a chance to speak with Ben Prentice, VP of Sales at Owl, who gave me the low-down on the Vegawatt.

As winter dumps her usual dose of cruelty here in New York’s Hudson Valley, like many drivers of veggie oil-powered cars, I have begun reading up on how to best prepare mine for the cold season.

There is a LOT out there on the web regarding the proper blending of WVO, diesel, kerosene, etc. After several weeks of reading several hundred blogs and forum posts, here is what I’ve deduced: Nobody really knows.

And here’s what else I’ve deduced…it really doesn’t matter.  I’ve put every conceivable combination into my single-tank 240D. With the exception of a slight increase in power when using a higher ratio of dyno-diesel, there is no significant difference in performance or MPG.

When I was asked to write for Gas 2.0, I jumped at the opportunity to share some of the experiences I’ve had during my greasy 10,000 mile odyssey in the 1983 Mercedes 240D, with a diesel engine converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO).

I’m often asked what kind of oil works best, so here’s a quick reference guide to different kinds of grease for your driving pleasure.

Waste vegetable oil gathered from restaurants is definitely not all the same. Or rather, by the time you get them, they have not all been “used” the same. So far, over the past six months, here’s what I’ve deduced:

Editor’s Note: John is one of the newest additions to the Gas 2.0 writing team. Welcome John!

When Greg Steltenpohl, Chairman and Co-founder of Adina, the San Francisco-based healthy beverage company, does something, one might say he takes it to the extreme.

His company’s tagline, “Drink No Evil”, even applies to their vehicles — including a delivery fleet of electric cars and full-size school bus converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO), which Adina uses at their tasting events.

I recently had a chance to interview him about his company’s transportation options. Several interesting topics popped up in our chat, including corporate responsibility, greenwashing, and the importance of outreach. Read on to hear more.

A Texas-based company has announced the “world’s first mini-refinery” for consumer use that can produce both ethanol and biodiesel from the same small machine at the same time. It’s capable of generating up to 120 gallons per day of ethanol and 450 gallons per day of biodiesel.

Consisting of two pieces of equipment — an ethanol boiler and the mini-refinery — the whole system can fit into an area of less than 30 square feet with 8 feet of clearance and is completely automated.

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.

The "volksvegan" at our campsite near Mt. Hood.It just wouldn't be summer without an annual summer road trip. There's simply nothing like piling into the car and hitting the road, bound for a remote location to escape the heat of the season. This summer I will be on the ultimate road trip: our volksvegan adventure, an experiment in sustainable travel.

We call our 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon a

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