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Factory To Make Biodiesel From Chicken Fat
telekon writes "Tyson foods has finally found a use for chicken fat and leftover food grease that isn't McNuggets — they've partnered with Syntroleum to produce biodiesel from the stuff. Their first plant in Louisiana will be able to churn out 75 million gallons a year. The question is, will the exhaust smell like fried chicken?"
Well at least, if it smells fried chicken, it will be better than actual truck exhaust!
One also wonders why they switched from the previous use... Where the expected higher oil prices and/or some sort of biofuel subsidy good enough to make it cost effective, or did feeding animals their own ground up con-specifics break some new health and sanitary regulation?
I suppose they could also have just taken advantage of some improvement in refining technology to change the point of combustion. I'd suspect that a coal-fired plant wouldn't even notice some chicken fat mixed in with the coal; but that the price per ton paid for the fat would be unexciting; while, with the right refining technology, you could turn those same lipids into a vehicle fuel, which is rather more valuable per ton....
Yeah, but given its price as pills, a pint of liquid Lipitor(tm) will cost like $6,000 in the U.S. (Or $4.95 in Canada/Mexico.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
You post is rationalization at best. Your claims for vegetarianism are easily refuted and shown as the ramblings of someone who gets halfway through a problem and assumes they have the answer.
1) health wise
Wrong. Vegetarian diet is so unhealthy that you can frequently spot vegetarians by sight. They tend to be gaunt. Low in muscle mass and low in muscle tone. When vegetarian from childhood, they tend to be shorter due to malnutrition.
2) environmentally - At current rates of environmental degradation and population growth, the mass of humanity will be vegetarian very soon of necessity. We won't be able to continue wasting 99% of our food.
The problem you are describing is overpopulation. Humans overbreeding for their food source. If populations continue to grow as you suggest, being vegetarian will not stop starvation. At best it will only delay it. I suppose eating as vegetarians COULD reduce the populations health enough that the population drops off, but humans are biologically pretty robust. I doubt the poor health of being a vegetarian is going to be enough to reduce our population.
3) ethically
Eating meat is not unethical. If we are going start playing the "killing lower life forms is unethical" game, then it is vegetarians that are unethical. They kill the most helpless life forms on the planet. They line them up and force them to live unnatural lives in unnatural environments. They genetically manipulate them to suit their needs, and consume them while they are still alive.
Life includes killing. It is unavoidable.
4) the stomachs of the poor to have to compete with the gas tanks of the rich
There is not one single person on the planet that is going hungry due to ethanol-from-sugar. World hunger is a byproduct of corrupt governments, (to a lesser extent) parental irresponsibility and the inherent difficulties in distribution. Here in the US, my aunt is actually paid NOT to grow corn. She is not alone. As long as there are thousands of farmers who are paid not to grow corn, any claim of people going hunger because there isn't enough is at best misinformed. At worst an outright lie.