Why does everyone talk about using used veggie oil, but not about making your own?

Question

This has always bugged me. We're told to go get used veggie oil from restaurants for diesel. I am not asking restaurants for used oil, thats ridiculous. Wouldn't it be easier to make veggie oil? Weren't the romans doing it way back when?

Is making veggie oil something I can do???

I agree with greenies on one thing, I would love to tell big oil where to stick it!

Answer 1

"The oil companies fund the environmentalists. They're both on the same side of wanting to restrict supply,"

"When the oil companies are able to make hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, they're not going to come along and tell the American people that oil is abundant, that we are never going to run out of it, that we're finding increasing resources."

Answer 2

All oil's come from plants ,so yes u can make your own oil. Good luck.

Answer 3

We are carefully avoiding suggesting that we can accomplish much by switching to bio-diesel. Using up some cooking waste looks like a good thing to do, even though we rapidluy run out of fuel.

But we do not want to commit a lot more farm land to growing more auto fuel.

Answer 4

It makes no economic sense to make veggie oil for the purpose of powering a car. Go to the store and buy a gallon of canola oil. It will probably run you 8-9 bucks. Diesel costs around 4.

Answer 5

Our government is trying to make fuel from a vegetable.  Corn is a vegetable isn't it? Notice any increase in food prices lately? Sugarcane would be a good alternative fuel.  It sure works well in Brazil and it wouldn't use land which is currently planted in wheat.  Trouble is, I doubt if the US has enought land that is suitable for growing sugarcane in sufficient quantities to make a real difference in our fuel shortage.

I've seen olive oil being pressed and you'd need a good supply of olives and a fair amount of time on your hands. Also, you probably wouldn't want to take any long trips.

Answer 6

No it would not be easyer.  Making the oils would require you to grow or buy huge quantites of some kind of oil seed like canola, sesame or sunflower and press them.  I assume that the press would be a very exspencive peice of equiptment.  THen you need a way to dispose of all the leftover seeds.  When you get used fryer oil all this has been done for you and you are reclycling a waste product instead of burning food.

Answer 7

Okay, so here we are.  The current state of technology is such that home grown ethanol is going to be available within a year.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/techno...

After that, say within the next ten years, we will be using home grown diesel fuel from algae.  Boeing says it will be flying bio-fuel in jets in the next ten years.

So why can't we make our own veggie oil... we can, but it doesn't make economic sense.  You can squeeze olives, or sunflower seeds all you want, and you'll get oil at $10 or more per gallon.  And big manufacturers can make it more cost efficiently than you can.

Answer 8

It's a pretty complicated process to extract if from the plant seeds--you can get some out by pressing the seeds but when it's produced industrially that's only like the first of three processes, the others involving lots of chemicals.  So I guess you could press your own at home but if you were throwing out the seeds without exploiting all of their oil it wouldn't be the most efficient thing.

Answer 9

I can think of one really good reason for burning Used Veggie Oil.  It is really cheep as in free most of the time.  This way we also avoid competing for newly processed oil in a way that would raise the price of food even more.  

Sure you could go through the bother of growing your own beans or whatever and pressing them for oil.  But why?  Used Veggie Oil is going to be thrown away.  It is far greener to recycle something that would otherwise be a disposal problem.

Answer 10

It's not ridiculous to ask restaurants for their oil, they will normally have to go and pay someone to remove it for them, don't feel "embarrassed" when asking for oil. If they say no, then it's on to the next restaurant, but usually they will be happy to give it to you for free. Making your own veggie oil is highly unethical. The equipment needed to do it is EXTREMELY Expensive and you would pretty much have to have a small to medium sized farm to make enough oil.

Answer 11

If you buy the oil,lets say a $1. a gal.They will galdly sell you all.

Been doing it over a year now.

Better than letting vendors mix it with feed for cattle and chickens.Madcow anyone.

Answer 12

you need alot of equipment that can blow up if you dont know how to use it properly.... not "everyone" should be making their own bio-diesel....

Answer 13

Think about it:

It is far more efficient to use the oil several times before burning it.  If it'll fry potatoes, use it for that, first.  Then when it becomes too oxidized (i.e., rancid) for that use, filter it and burn it in an engine, unless it can be used for some other intermediate purpose before finally being burned.  Otherwise, you're wasting a valuable food product.  

The whole idea of being 'green' is that you use every resource to its greatest advantage.  In this case, you're using _recycled_ oil.  

Note, however, that food oil has been recycled for many years, so you're not doing much that's either new or particularly virtuous.

Answer 14

Don't be stupid. You can't make your own efficiently.