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Biodiesel is a non-toxic, renewable fuel source that diesel engines can burn with little or no modification. It can power anything from a car to an airplane, and can even fuel domestic and commercial boilers. It consists of methyl esters created by mixing virgin vegetable oil, waste vegetable oil, waste animal fat or a combination of the three with methanol (another byproduct of the process, glycerin, is often used in soaps).

According to the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), production of biodiesel reached 250 million barrels in 2006 in the United States. That makes it the fastest growing sector of the renewable fuel market. Manufacturing plants have been around for decades but are now multiplying at breakneck speed, and so too are waste oil recycling companies, capitalizing on the industry’s growth.

Waste oil recycling promises major environmental benefits. A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has shown that biodiesel significantly reduces emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prominent greenhouse gas, as well as emissions of diesel particulate matter and toxic compounds. And a 2004 report by the International Energy Agency calculated that the U.S. produces enough waste cooking oil to make 500 million gallons of biodiesel a year.

While city, state and federal biodiesel fuel use isn’t new, in the last two years municipalities have begun to recycle and consume waste oil, once the domain of do-it-yourself hobbyists like Eriksen. From start-up programs in some smaller Southern cities, to the Bay Area’s sophisticated “closed loop” plan, to New York City’s recent bioheat mandate, cities are grabbing their slice of the grease pie.

While biodiesel seems a radical innovation, extracting fuel from edible oils is a century-old technology. In 1898, Rudolph Diesel developed the first compression engine to run on peanut oil, which he demonstrated at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, but it never took off.”

The Southern BIY (Blend-It-Yourself) Movement

In Alexandria, Eriksen finds restaurants and other businesses offering their waste oil by scanning the Vegetable Oil Exchange Web site. The Web site is not the product of the grassroots waste oil subculture, but rather a program of Montgomery County, Md.’s waste management department. Its audience extends throughout Maryland, parts of Virginia and even Pennsylvania. In addition to the Vegetable Oil Exchange, the program provides a central location where local residents can drop off their waste oil; the county then turns the oil over to a company that converts it into biodiesel. Rick Dimont, manager of the county’s hazardous waste and waste reduction program, says they’ve created this program not only because of the appeal of waste vegetable oil as an alternative fuel source, but also because collecting it reduces the costly problem of sewer blockages.

Cities further south have taken the biofuel movement a step further, not only recycling but converting their waste vegetable oil. When David Lindon, who manages the fleet of city vehicles for Hoover, Ala., learned that a utility company in Daphne, Ala., had opened a plant to convert waste cooking oil into biodiesel, he wanted to follow suit. So Lindon, a large man with combed-back white hair and a hefty Southern drawl, taught himself the biodiesel production process. He then purchased the equipment, taught his team how to use it and set up shop at the city’s vehicle services center. It’s now part of the daily routine of all employees at the center.

Lindon makes it sound easy. “All you need is a collection program, a very small processor, some storage tanks, a little bit of chemicals and a little bit of education, and you’re in business,” he says. That “very small” processor cost Hoover $120,000, but with the money saved on purchasing diesel, it’s paying for itself. It costs 90 cents per gallon to manufacture the biodiesel on premises, says Lindon, versus a gallon of petroleum diesel, which at press time averaged a little below three dollars.

In 2007, Hoover implemented the Grease 2 Oil recycling program and began picking up waste cooking oil from both restaurants and residents. Fleet management makes B100 (pure biodiesel) and then blends with diesel to B20 (a blend of 20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent diesel) for its vehicles. Hoover now collects the oil from 21 restaurants and produces 300 to 500 gallons of biodiesel per month. Residents pick up empty gallon-sized jugs at various locations, including Hoover fire stations, and drop off their filled containers at those same locations. “We collect as much cooking oil from homeowners as we do our restaurants,” Lindon says. A quirky side effect is that the smell of cooked food now wafts from the vehicle services center on a daily basis.

Hoover’s ability to carry out their do-it-yourself biodiesel program can be credited to the city’s small size, with a population of around 69,000; however, Jacksonville, Fla., a city at least ten times larger, has put a similar program in place. The city has been using biodiesel blends since 2001, earning environmental credits from the Department of Energy. Ever since the Environmental Protection Act (EPAct), city vehicle fleets have spurred the growth of both the biodiesel and ethanol industries. In 1992, the federal government mandated that fleets in some cities switch to alternative-fuel vehicles or use alternative fuel in existing vehicles. In 2005, the EPAct added tax credits as an incentive.

Like Hoover, Jacksonville began home-brewing biodiesel from businesses’ and residents’ waste cooking oil two years ago. But the program was put on hold in 2008, and now, fleet manager Sam Houston says he has “20,000 gallons of waste oil sitting here waiting to be turned into biodiesel.” At press time, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was in the process of testing methane emissions from the biodiesel. They also want to make sure the glycerin waste product is properly disposed. Houston says the local waste water facility may take the glycerin to treat sewage. “We’re getting there, but we’re not totally there yet,” he says about the program.

Save Our Sewers

According to the NBB, which promotes the biodiesel industry, biodiesel sales have multiplied tenfold, from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 250 million gallons in 2006. What percentage of manufactured biodiesel comes from recycled cooking oil remains unclear. The NBB doesn’t track waste oil because their essential mission has been to promote biodiesel manufactured from virgin oils, especially that derived from soybeans. That’s starting to change, however. “The industry really wants to have a very diverse supply of feedstocks,” says Amber Pearson, a spokesperson for the NBB. “Algae offers a lot of hope but probably won’t be here for a few years.” She says they also hope to see recycled cooking oil play a larger role.

In Feb. 2009, the NBB held its annual conference in San Francisco. “San Francisco is the largest known city in the world to use B20 fleetwide,” says Pearson. The conference recognized Mayor Gavin Newsom for strides the city has made in both biodiesel usage and its waste oil recycling program, SFGreaseCycle.

“At the heart of SFGreaseCycle is the need to protect the sewer from damage caused by grease,” says Lewis Harrison, manager of the public utility’s wastewater division. The city’s grease problem was so messy and expensive that clean-ups cost around $3.5 million per year. It even became a problem for the bay and the ocean. Introduced in 2007, SFGreaseCycle collects waste cooking oil from about 550 restaurants. Lewis hopes the city can also regularly collect residents’ waste oil soon; right now, it’s only picked up during the holidays at places such as Costco.

Unlike Hoover and Jacksonville, San Francisco does not yet produce its own biodiesel; it’s too large to do so. The city sells the oil it collects to manufacturing plants in the Bay Area, then it buys back biodiesel for its fleet through contractual arrangements with the plants. As of October 2008, San Francisco had sold about $130,000 in waste vegetable oil since the program started. By next year, Harrison predicts, the number will be closer to $250,000. With the money from sales, the city is offering rebates to restaurants for purchasing automatic grease removal devices. They’re still so new (and therefore expensive) that at press time only 10 restaurants in the city had the devices in place.

These automatic devices are one of the keys to San Francisco’s near-future “closed loop” alternative energy plan. They would separate food waste from waste oil, enabling the city to create renewable energy from both sources. San Francisco hopes to build a bioenergy facility by 2012 that will not only produce biodiesel but will also draw methane from food waste to power turbines that generate electricity. Some of the methane will be turned into compressed biogas to power the city’s garbage trucks.

Oil Is in the Air

Thousands of miles east of San Francisco lies the country’s most densely populated metropolis: New York City. According to a study by the National Renewable Energy Lab, New York could produce 53 million gallons of biodiesel per year from waste grease — roughly five times the diesel consumed by the public transit system of all five boroughs combined.

In an effort to reduce carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030, the city currently uses bioheat, a blend of conventional heating oil and biodiesel, to heat some of its buildings. After all, it’s not vehicles that are dirtying the air; it’s heating fuel, which represents 79% of New York City’s carbon emissions. The Parks Department has been running its massive diesel fleet of 850 vehicles on B20 for the last three years. But with expanded bioheat plans under way, the city could set a standard for others to think beyond their fleets. Boston and Philadelphia are already taking notice.

In 2008, New York City passed a mandate as part of PlaNYC (a citywide plan to address population growth, infrastructure and environmental challenges) to add 5-percent biodiesel into the heating oil it buys for one-third of city-owned buildings. By 2012, a 20-percent blend will heat all city buildings, and B20 may be mandated for all fuel-oil users, commercial and residential, by 2013. At least a portion of the city’s bioheat supply will come from Metro Fuel, a decades-old heating company with plans to partake in the biofuel revolution. The company is awaiting permits to begin building a massive biodiesel manufacturing facility in Brooklyn. It will produce 110 million gallons of biodiesel per year from multiple feedstocks, including waste oil from local restaurants, virgin vegetable oils and animal fats.

Adding Biofuel to the Fire

While biodiesel seems a radical innovation, extracting fuel from edible oils is a century-old technology. In 1898, Rudolph Diesel developed the first compression engine to run on peanut oil, which he demonstrated at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, but it never took off: petroleum-based fuel dominated the fuel market because the discovery of new oil fields made it cheaper to produce. Diesel held out hope: “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today,” he said in a speech in 1912, “but such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time.” Diesel’s dream lived on in the 1930s, when Henry Ford and George Washington Carver became close friends and colleagues because they shared a vision of substituting agricultural crops for gasoline.

Those three pioneers may get their wish. With environmental and energy security concerns along with higher costs, petroleum-based fuels have lost much of their appeal. Cities and states have tax credits, renewable energy mandates and local environmental woes as incentive to invest in alternative fuel sources that were not taken seriously until now. Just as Dave Lindon modeled Hoover’s biodiesel production after a fellow Alabamian city, pioneering municipalities will likely become templates for fellow cities — or even develop healthy rivalries.

Recycling companies and individuals hunting for waste vegetable oil already find themselves engaged in “a little competition,” according to Eriksen. A health-food spot he recently found on the Vegetable Oil Exchange gave him the OK to pick up their grease, but then informed him they didn’t need him. When the grease goes, it goes quick.

Illustration by Fogelson-Lubliner

This article appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Next American City magazine. SUBSCRIBE NOW!