San Francisco Fryer Oil Skirmish
As if there isn’t enough bio-diesel controversy over the food for fuel debate now we have a little skirmish arising here in San Francisco. When we walk by any San Francisco restaurant (particularly the ones that have that delish yet oh so bad for you fried cuisine) we can smell where this fuss originated – the fryers. Yes, it’s that oh so wonderful french fry grease that companies like Blue Sky Bio-fuels and Got Grease work with to create biofuel. To us this method makes much more sense to reuse old oil and grease than to the create fuel directly from real food.
In this case the grease skirmish remains between the City of San Francisco and the private sector. Both Got Grease and Blue Sky pick up grease (usually for free) from small restaurants, but now the City jumped into the fryer and collects it as well. The fact that the City collects the oil isn’t a problem but the fact that the City has been using health inspectors to secure oil from the restaurants smells like burnt oil to us. Apparently a letter from the City exists that says something to the effect of “The City has been so busy collecting restaurant oil that we haven’t had time to write up violations.” Should we call this mess “Greasefellas”?
- » See also: Biofuels Breakthrough: Making Fuel From Air With Engineered Microbes
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We’re all about promoting recycling of oil and grease but this slippery slope of “socialist” thinking doesn’t exactly scream fair competition. Apparently the City uses taxpayer dollars to pick up grease from Google and Stanford University which aren’t exactly in San Francisco. Also, the City ships the grease to Nevada. That’s not what we hoped the City would do to lower its carbon footprint. Aren’t there enough biodiesal plants in the Bay Area?
Hopefully free market conditions will prevail because we don’t want this controversy to impact our thinking when we head out for fish ‘n’ chips.
Well, what a suprise! Socialism screwing the rest of us while they try to make themselves look good and making sure that average Joe has lost the cause and the ability to foght back too!
Stinking mess we may find ourselves in if we don’t wake up huh?
Socialisation has never made any product or service more efficient, responsible, improved quality, lowered it’s cost or created more of it!
Free market beware! What’s San Francisco got to hide???? Think about it!
This article contains no facts or references. What exactly is the skirmish? What exactly are the health inspectors doing to ’secure oil’?
From your article, Keith: “Apparently a letter from the City exists that says something to the effect of…”
Apparently you simply wanted to stir up the grease.
And who can “create fuel directly from real food” ?
Please examine this Gas 2.0 article citing a USDA study that states that ethanol only accounts for a 3% increase in the cost of food:
http://gas2.org/2008/05/22/usda-says-ethanol-accounts-for-only-3-of-increased-cost-of-food/
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2008%2F05%2F0130.xml&PC_7_2_5JM_parentnav=TRANSCRIPTS_SPEECHES&PC_7_2_5JM_navid=TRANSCRIPT
If there is some other food for fuel debate as your opening sentence claims, please cite it.
Colin,
The skirmish is that private industry has been doing the job and the city has jumped in, utilizing their health inspectors as a sales force for restaurants that already had green private industry providers picking up their oil instead of going after restaurant accounts who don’t have providers and are polluting the bay. This restaurant oil is rendered and then used by biodiesel companies to create fuel. It is a feedstock that is widely used at this point as other types of oil, such as soybean are so much more expensive.