Greasing Our Wheels for Speed?

Question

I'd like to know your thoughts on the following:

Grease is the word for alternative fuel

CHICAGO (UPI) -- Restaurants are filling up more than stomachs as U.S drivers turn to used grease as an alternative fuel to skyrocketing gasoline costs, market analysts say.

Increasingly, restaurants are being paid for their used cooking oil, instead of having to pay someone to take the discolored, food particle-filled goop away, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

Not so coincidentally, sales for kits that allow diesel-powered cars to run on the spent cooking oil also are on the rise.

Rising energy prices greased the wheels for grease's popularity.

"It all goes back to the high price of crude oil," said Bill Dieterichs, an analyst at The Jacobsen, a Chicago publication that follows grease and tallow markets. "That's what started the ball rolling."

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Answer 1

Isn't Capitalism great?  Where else can we take pure garbage and turn it into something useful?

Answer 2

I read about this sometime last summer. The article I read featured a man who runs his farming equipment on the used grease from the McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's in the small town where he lives. (It says a lot in itself that he lives in small town America but that all three of the "big" burger chains have an outlet in his town.)

The gentleman farmer said that when he first converted his harvester, the manager of one of the local restaurants where he gets his oil thought he was insane when he asked if he might have their used oil. The manager had to write to corporate headquarters to get permission, but it was all worked out fairly quickly.

The farmer soon found that he couldn't get enough fuel from the three chain restaurants, so he contacted all the "mom and pop" restaurants in the area, and the only payment he makes for his fuel is that one of the places is famous for their fried green tomatoes, and he planted extras (he doesn't sell tomatoes, just large harvest crops like corn and wheat) in his family garden, and he gives them green ones for his fuel.

The nifty thing was that when the technology came around, this farmer was operating in the red a lot of the time, and it was due to fuel costs. After he started using the new fuel, his numbers slowly moved into the black, which really made him happy, since the land he farms has been in his family for generations, and he didn't want to be the one who had to sell the farm.

I think it's wonderful technology. The farmer of whom I wrote is the only person I have heard of who uses it, but the end of the article I read about him said that several other farmers in the area were eyeing the conversion kits. Once he got all the restaurants in the area onboard with the project, he found there was more oil than he needed in their little area of the world. He figured that several other farmers in his area could use the cooking oil, and others could use oil from other towns in their county.

The great thing about this technology is it takes a waste product and turns it into something useful. That's the true meaning of "recycling" in my eyes. Not only is it of use, he wasn't paying anything but green tomatoes for what he was getting. I am sure that's changed since I read about him last summer, but still, I cannot imagine that the cost is as high as a gallon of regular dieself fuel. (And I would just add that he bought heavy equipment for his farm which runs on diesel because diesel used to be less expensive in the first place--he was totally unprepared for diesel prices to go so high that it's now more expensive than regular gasoline.)

Any alternative fuel source is a good one, in my eyes. I think using what amounts to garbage which needs careful disposal is a great idea. I would use it myself if I could.

Answer 3

in some areas people would go through blue boxes and pull out the aluminium cans to take to the recyclers for money ;soon they will be hanging out in the backs of your local greasy spoon to snag the oil drippings for their car;I think it is a great idea better in the tank of the local bus or car than dumped into the storm sewer to avoid disposal fees of the grease