Originally published January 20 2006
Vegetable oil used for power during the cold months
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Researchers at Cornell University are excitedly investigating the future of biodiesel, a mixture of petroleum and vegetable oil that could be the next big thing in cleaner energy. While the mixture was deemed too costly in previous years, a new federal initiative will make it competitive with rising fossil fuel prices.
If you're like most New York City homeowners, the recent combination of early winter snow and record high fuel prices already has you griping as you await the first monster Keyspan bill of the season.
Nettleton's group has two projects under way within the city involving "bio-fuel," specifically bio-diesel.
By promoting the use of such fuels, environmentalists hope to reduce petroleum emissions while at the same time providing an additional market for local farmers and recyclers.
Earlier this year, Nettleton's group conducted a survey of New York restaurants and put the total amount of waste vegetable oil available to recyclers more than a million gallons in Brooklyn alone.
"There's a huge potential supply of restaurants and food service establishments in New York City, I think 26,000 restaurants by the last count," says James Quigley, director of the Center for Sustainable Energy at Bronx Community College.
Percentages vary, but the most common bio-diesel blend, 20 percent vegetable oil, 80 percent petroleum -- often referred to as B20 -- is already price-competitive when compared to regular diesel and gasoline.
The cost will become even more competitive because of a recent federal tax credit giving heating oil producers a dollar back for every gallon of virgin soybean oil they use to produce bio-diesel.
Environmental Fuel Alternatives, a Brooklyn startup with production facilities In Newark, claims to have sold two million gallons of bio-diesel in less than two years' time.
Even if you raise the blend ratio to 100 percent refined vegetable oil, you still face the continued problem of turning long-chain carbon molecules into airborne carbon gases such as carbon monoxide, a poison, and carbon dioxide, a heat- trapping chemical considered by many scientists to be a root cause of rising global temperatures.
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