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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."
Soylent heat is people (leftovers)!
McDonalds Energy,
Solving home heating crisis by providing clean deep fryer vegetable oil!
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
This is it. I love this kind of idea and packaging/sale. It's clean, it seems to work, and companies are going to be attracted to that (esp. the $800/month energy savings...) The idea really isn't new, but they've cleaned it up, and that's really what counts these days.
It's all fun and games till someone divides by 0. Then it's hilarious.
fried food is kind of nasty
That's my retirement grease!
My friend runs his diesel car on a 50% mix of diesel and used oil from a fish and chip shop. And it always stinks of fish.
If everybody started using used vegetable oil for an energy source, wouldn't the cost of used vegetable oil go way up? Meaning it would be more cost effective to sell the oil and buy the electricity rather than use the oil to generate my own electricity. Trust me, if dead cats were to become a viable energy source, then even the market value of a dead cat would skyrocket. (What?!? There's currently no market for trading dead cat futures?!?)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"It also produces fuel free of chemicals..." As a somewhat tired internet meme would say; "O rly?"
FFS people, virtually everything is made of "chemicals" and that isn't a problem. Sure, there are loads of quite nasty chemicals that will play hell with your chemistry and are to be avoided; but the notion that there are chemical free fuels is beyond asinine.
As long as people keep eating fried foods, then there will be an abundant supply of clean fuel... So F U to those who tell us what we should and should not eat.
Up with trans fats, down with... boiled crap.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I for one welcome smog warnings that are accompanied by the delicate scent of fries.
So does the vega-thingie burn the oil or harvest heat from used oil? Doesn't burning vegetable oil still produce a lot CO2? I don't get it. I guess you get less smog-forming chemicals.
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.
You can't take the sky from me...
It also produces fuel free of chemicals or fossil fuels, unlike standard biodiesel.
Free of chemicals? What are they burning then? Certainly there are emissions, so what are they?
How does that work? Maybe they meant "hazardous chemicals" or something.
What the hell does that mean, anyway? People throw that phrase around, and I guess you have an idea of what they are getting at, but as a claim, isn't it problematic?
Aren't they burning a hydrocarbon? How does this qualify as clean?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I still think it cleaner, safer and more responsible to leave bio-fuels to the pro - the experienced commercial operator.
The restaurant is a fire waiting to happen.
They survive on very thin margins. They hire kids for jobs like this. They don't pay them much. They don't train them well.
At one restaurant I worked at 15-20 years ago, the spent frying oil was collected and then picked up by someone. The chef said it was like returning bottles or selling scrap metal. One use was allegedly that the cosmetics industry would purchase the processed oil and put it in lipsticks. Was he taking a piss?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Is it just me or is the picture with the guy standing next to the VegaWatt photoshopped?
No, it's just the dramatic contrast in the wall behind them.
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
"NOW you're COOKIN'"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
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
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
McDonalds powers their trucks with the old oil for the fries here in NL. I calculated that you don't have to use any extra diesel to get the truck to all the McDonalds's here to pick up their trash. Very cool concept.
-- Cheers!
There used to a bottled propane called Bottogas which was sold in the UK. A friend (who admittedly lived in a rural area...) was persuaded when small by his older brother that it was so called because the bottles were filled with the gas from cows' bottoms. You may find this improbable, but buildings have caught fire and burnt down through people carelessly igniting cow fart.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html
It was a really distressing story to see that someone who went out of his way to avoid using oil for powering his car got fined for essentially evading fuel taxes by buying vegetable oil from costo
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why not use the biofuel to heat and power the deep fryer?
This may be acceptable at some restaurants that are already saturated with this odor, but wider adoption of such appliances may be limited by nuisance and customer concerns.
It is kind of a bummer, but if you live near water, there is usually cheaper fuel available that does not contain road taxes, and he essentially did the same thing as going to one of those pumps with his car. It's kind of silly to tax him alone, but on the other hand, there isn't nearly enough oil for everyone to switch, so it isn't really fair not to.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Why not start with the heating of the fat itself? Make a frying pan that cleans itself and uses the leftover/bad oil to heat the new/filtered oil. One machine that powers itself. You can of course use some of the energy for the electronics/pumps and maybe even power a few other devices. Or would this not be technical feasible? I like self sufficient devices.
When I first got my 2003 Civic Hybrid, Oregon DMV was doing a similarly stupid thing - they slapped a surcharge onto the registration fee for all hybrids, on the premise that I wouldn't be paying as much in gasoline taxes! A couple years later they saw the error of their ways; now they don't charge any more to register a hybrid. Now they just want to put a GPS in every car and tax you by mile instead of taxing you by gallon. But yes, use of alternative fuels does screw up the model they use for assessing highway taxes.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I would rather they used a good filtering method and reused most of the oil for frying.
I bet you'll also want them to filter the dishwater and serve it to you in a glass?
You can't take the sky from me...
....Now they just want to put a GPS in every car and tax you by mile...
It seems that periodically reading the odometer and applying a formula that includes the weight of the vehicle ought to be a way to make a simple and fair tax for vehicles which use an alternate fuel. The present gasoline tax has worked well for years. Why come up with a complicated system using GPS, while all cars already have an odometer. The fuel tax is about the only tax where a taxpayer still gets value for his money.
All theory is gray
What happens if you drive to another state? Who gets the taxes? I'm not advocating a GPS system (I don't want the government tracking me), there are still flaws with an odometer system.
We can use clean coal, appreciate what it really is
... dirty?
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Here in the Netherlands it is forbidden to use vegetable oil or left-over frying oil as fuel for cars, even if the cars are perfectly able to run on it and pollute less then running on normal diesel. The reason: Taxes. They get no chance to skim off 'some' money so you can't use it.
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
I think the VegaWatt is a good idea, as it helps to make restaurants more profitable. I'm sure most businesses would like a 10%-15% drop in there electricity bill along with the elimination of disposal fees.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Its used in alot of products, High protein animal feed, dog food, makeup, synthetic oils and lubricants. Tallow as its called is actually a commodity that is traded on the stock market. Used Oil has been recycled before recycling was the thing to do. Most restaurants have a contract with a local renderer and get paid for there waste oil. Anyone who tells you they are just throwing used oil away is lying.
Not only do they recycle used oil, they also pick up supermarket scraps and spoiled food, dead livestock, meat processing scraps and hides, and whatever else you can think of thats pretty much nasty.
I only know all of this since its a family business and it erks me when people are uneducated on what really happens with tallow.
http://nationalrenderers.org/
Finally a fuel "free of chemicals"!
How many Vegawatts are in a Jigowatt?
Ok, I really do I suppose. This seems cool and a good idea, but it irks me when they claim that the thing produces a "fuel free of chemicals" because in that case it would actually produce nothing at all. I know what they mean, but isn't there another word they could use? Harmful chemicals maybe? Unwanted byproducts? There's gotta be a better term.
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