NY Times: San Franciciso city government wants your used vegetable oil to power its fleet of cars
Filed under: Diesel, Legislation and Policy
As a blogger for AutoblogGreen, I read about waste vegetable oil used as a car fuel daily but I have to admit to a "WTF?" moment when reading about details of what fuels were used by San Francisco's new fully biodiesel-capable fleet. According to the New York Times, the fleet uses virgin soy from the Midwest in a B20 mix ... and the city of San Francisco wants your used grease. Cue the sound of a record player needle being loudly pushed off an LP. They want what?Yes, the Times writes about the new SFGreasecycle, which you will remember was launched in November with a website run by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, that will collect waste vegetable oil from homes and restaurants for free and convert it to biodiesel. This is the first city-wide program that collects used veggie oil for its car fleet, an activity usually seen as something done by small garage companies. If you have not seen or don't recall the hilarious 1977 movie The Kentucky Fried Movie, enjoy the predictive powers of comedy in a clip below the fold.
I am not making fun of San Francisco because I think this is a good program. They have the greenest car fleet in the nation. It will save money, reduce waste and hopefully inspire more agencies and companies to collect waste vegetable oil but can you imagine the average Joe reading about this program in the Times? WTF!
[Source: New York Times]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-04-2007 @ 5:01PM
stevejust said...
I thought Denton, Texas (of all places) beat SF to the punch, no? The program there's been up and running for a while.
http://www.cityofdenton.com/pages/mygovenvironmentalairbiodieselfac.cfm
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12-04-2007 @ 5:35PM
Mort said...
My local gubmint has a recycle place for oil and grease, it's five miles away. I'm not riding my bicycle five miles with a gallon of grease in tow. Stupid is as stupid does.
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12-04-2007 @ 6:49PM
Lascelles Linton said...
Stevejust, Everyone wants to be first :D I guess they might say first because Denton is partly private ... though I would not be surprised if SF's is backed by a company as well. Who knows? It's all great, whoever is first. I hope they 8th city to do it does it not be "a first" but they do it because it saves local businesses money and makes the air cleaner.
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12-04-2007 @ 7:55PM
stevejust said...
C’mon, Mr. Linton. I’m not letting you off that easily. A blogger should check his or her facts, regardless of whether they’re coming from a press release, the NY Times, or their brother-in-law. You wrote that SF’s “is the first city-wide program that collects used veggie oil for its car fleet, an activity usually seen as something done by small garage companies.”
Well, no. This is demonstrably false. Denton, Texas has had a program like that for the past two years. They’ve been collecting oil from around DFW and running Denton city vehicles on biodiesel. And believe me, there’s more yahoos and idiots in DFW than any possible stereotyped conception an east or west coaster might have… so if it can work in Denton two years before SF gets around to it, it can work anywhere. Moreover, Denton’s production uses off gassing from the landfill. So they’re not only ahead of San Francisco, they are ahead of virtually all other biodiesel manufacturers.
Maybe I should take my complaint to the NY times. I just think people should be careful to be accurate with things like this.
http://www.grainnet.com/articles/World_s_First_Fully_Renewable_Biodiesel_Facility_Set_for_March_29_Opening_in_Denton__TX-25652.html
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12-04-2007 @ 10:03PM
Lascelles Linton said...
Stevejust, Anytime I ask, they always have something that makes it first. I think the first here is the biodiesel is used for the fleet of cars. That might not be true either but they probably have something else as well. The focus of my article was really the story being in the Times and 70's movie reference. I guess it could have been better article all around. I thought our readers would have found a lithium-ion HEV by now because Ener1 claims to be the first there. I guess they are. I really dug on that one.
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12-05-2007 @ 1:00PM
500 said...
Hope they're paying taxes on the vegetable oil:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/14/north-carolina-man-fined-for-using-vegetable-oil-in-his-car/
California requires an 18-cents a gallon tax on biofuels.
http://www.vegoil.us/Compliance.htm
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4-17-2008 @ 5:21PM
thomas w stephens said...
as a small-time farmer & contractor, i would like to know how to convert my tractors & other equipment to run on a blended fuel, and then a reliable vendor for the used oil. any help in this would be greatly appreciated.
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