Powering Restaurants WIth Deep Fried Fuel

Mike writes "Here's a brilliant idea for biofuels: rather than filtering used fry oil for use in vehicles, why not simplify matters and use it to heat and power the restaurant itself? The VegaWatt turns used vegetable oil into clean heat and energy for restaurants, eliminating the dirty and costly mess of oil disposal while producing 10-25% of the electricity needed to run a small restaurant. It also produces fuel free of chemicals or fossil fuels, unlike standard biodiesel."

Re:Coming soon,

[AmyRose1024]

They've used vegetable oil in their fryers for at least 10 years now. They now use a blend of soy and canola oil. http://www.ilsoy.org/soy-news/article/?sort=14&id=172 [ilsoy.org]

Re:What type of conversion?

[jhantin]

It's CO2 that was pulled out of the atmosphere when the vegetables it came from were grown, so in that respect it's carbon-neutral. The CO2 emitted by farming equipment, fertilizer production, and so forth would have happened anyway.

Re:Coming soon,

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Google knows all: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1331625/McDonalds-admits-using-beef-fat-for-vegetarian-french-fries.html [telegraph.co.uk]

According to the article, the restaurant locations fry in vegetable oil, but the fries were partially fried in animal fat before they are frozen and shipped out to the restaurants.

The fast-food chain had maintained for more than a decade that only vegetable oil was used in the hope of appealing to vegetarians and religious groups who do not eat beef products. Yesterday's apology triggered a violent protest by Hindus in India.

The American company, which has served more than 200 billion portions of french fries around the world, confessed to a method of using beef fat to partly fry chips before they are sent to restaurants. They are then frozen and refried on the premises using vegetable oil.

Re:Clean?

[SydShamino]

When was that carbon last in the atmosphere? If the answer is "within the past two years" then it doesn't make things worse.

If the answer is "fifty-seven million years ago" then there may be a problem.

Re:Just one problem

[NemosomeN]

That would cause the formation of trans-fats, a very bad thing.

Dupe....of idle....

[cstdenis]

Not only is this a dupe, like so many others on /., but it's a dupe of an article considered so stupid, it was put on idle: http://idle.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=3713481 [slashdot.org]

Re:Not just for soap anymore!

[RockWolf]

Plastic surgery clinics could do that too. It would be better than just leaving their lipid waste in big plastic bags in bio hazard dumpsters, where anyone can just jump the fence and steal it.

Already tried by a doctor in Beverley Hills. [theage.com.au] He used it to power two SUVs.