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Turning Grease Into Fuel
November 28, 2007

Posted by CindyC in : Communities , trackback

Instead of emitting diesel fumes and greenhouse gases, city buses may soon smell like the restaurant dinner you had last night. Last Tuesday, San Francisco launched SFGreasecycle, a program which picks up used cooking oil from restaurants, hotels and other commercial sites and turns it into biodiesel called B20.

sfgreaselogo

Until now, the biodiesel used in city vehicles are made from soybeans grown and shipped from the Mid-West rather than locally recycled grease.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city has been piloting SF Greasecycle since summer and now performs pickups for over 50 restaurants and 4 hotels. Participation in the program is completely free but service preference is given to businesses that currently don’t have service from any of the private recycling companies in the area. SFGreasecycle sends the recycled oil to a local biodiesel producer, Blue Sky Bio-fuels. The city is also in the process of determining feasibility of building its own biodiesel production plant.

Illegal dumping of cooking grease has long been a problem for the city. clogged_sewer

The grease congeals and form clogs in the sewer pipes, creating extra $3.5 million in maintenance costs. This program aims to eliminate this problem and satisfy San Francisco’s year end mandate of using diesel mixture that contains 20% biodiesel for the city’s fleet of 1500 diesel vehicle. With the B20 diesel mixture, city officials estimate reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 15% and soot by 20%.

I don’t know about you but I prefer the smell of food over diesel fumes any day.

CindyC at Organicpicks

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Comments»

1. ShowKidsTheMoney - November 28, 2007

I have a friend who converted his diesel truck over to run on leftover restaurant oil. He drives off and it smells like french fries! The restaurants love him because he picks it up and he loves it because he drives for free! Plus it makes a great story to tell his friends!

2. Minh - November 29, 2007

Gotta scoot to work but very recent article on biodiesel Life Cycle Analysis re GHG emissions (for Australia but still lots of useful transferrable info):

Biodiesel Could Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071127101930.htm

Key word is “could” and there are some conditions, but it could work.

The greenhouse and air quality emissions of biodiesel blends in Australia report can be downloaded at http://www.csiro.au/resources/pf13o.html

I’ll blog some stats out on my own this weekend.