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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Waste Vegetable Oil vs. Biodiesel
  • Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:04:54 EDT


>The company who hauls away the waste oils at your Captain D's is also
charging a price to pick up the oils. They are double-dipping.

I wouldn't doubt it. But the manager told me that it was a package deal with
the supplier. The price of the cooking oil with the same company taking
away the spent oil was cheaper than he could buy the oil straight up.

>
> >PLUS, contrary to popular mythology, you can't reuse oil indefinately.

Again, I wouldn't disagree. But in the case of snack food manufacturers it
seems that so much of the oil leaves the building on the potato chips an corn
chips that the old oil is constantly being diluted by the addition of new oil
and so, I am told, the only time they ever actually empty the fryers is when
one breaks down and they need to repair it.

>> Those systems don't
> work anymore than those systems they used to sell for cars where it was
> going to miraculously make it so you never had to buy new oil.

Hmm... apparently that's not so far from the case. Here there is an oil
recycling company, Necessary Oil, for whom I did IT work for a long time.
They
send trucks to places that do oil changes, pick up the old oil, and filter it
and refine it (it's a heat process and stinks mightily) and sell it back as
motor oil. Says the person who owns the business, until the oil vaporizes
from
the engine or polymerizes, it can be filtered, refined, and reused
indefinately.

That's not cooking oil, of course.




>
> >We know you don't like the concept and don't believe in the concept. We
> get
> that.

Apparently you don't. I'm indifferent to the concept. If our supply of
energy from the world oil market is not to be depended on, then french fry
oil is
many times less reliable.

To wit: One of the standing jokes here abouts concerns the great commercial
buildup at the only recently rural Virginia Exit 7 of Interstate 81. Popping
up like mushrooms have been the WalMart, Sam's, Lowes, Home Despot, Office
Despot, Target, etc. etc. as well as two farm store chains and three auto
parts
chains. That is, everything one might "need" is in one place. Some of us
backwater, self-reliant types have said that if fuel becomes scarce so that
we
can't run our trucks and cars any more, we could hitch up the horse and only
have to go to that one place to get everything we need ........ (wait for it)
.... like car parts.

Just like that is the notion that a diesel vehicle would keep you running
longer that a gas vehicle would. When the energy situation gets so bad that
petro diesel is too expensive or too scarce, we can just to the McDonald's
drive
through and pick up their used fryer oil. Am I the only one who sees the
joke
here?


>However, that doesn't negate the fact that it works for quite a few
> people.

As a novelty, but not as a solution that eases the cost of energy for anyone
but those in very rare circumstances. A metalurgist friend of mine needed to
run a heated acid bath for the finish on some contracted metal parts and
supplying the heat to the bath was a difficult and expensive prospect. He
came up
with the solution of gathering up all the steel shavings an filings, putting
them in a jacket around the acid container, and pouring water on them. As
the
steel rusted it gave off a steady and longlasting heat that was ideal for the
process.

But is that feasible way to heat things outside of this one curious
circumstance?

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