Why is it that a good thing for our planet ends up being challenged?
Today’s Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that Biodieselers are being challenged by big business.
Big collection and rendering companies are turning to the health department to challenge the hobbyists who make the fuel solely for their own use. They claim biodieselers shouldn’t be allowed to reap the “yellow grease” – so valuable it is traded on the commodities markets – unless they play by the rules.
The Salt Lake Valley Health Department is listening.
That means the little guys who make their own biodiesel who introduced the biodegradable, low-pollution, sustainable fuel to Utah long before anyone sold it commercially – already are the losers in this grease war, said Graydon Blair, a member of a 100-member grassroots group called the Utah Biodiesel Cooperative.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re doing it for yourself, you’re pretty much screwed,” he said. “This has pretty much killed [home-made] biodiesel in Salt Lake County.”
Big business buddies stick with big business buddies it looks like: The Health Department and these big companies.
The conflict began about six months ago, when Salt Lake Valley company Renegade Oil began complaining to the health department about grease thefts and the unequal treatment of biodiesel hobbyists who tend to ignore environmental protection laws that the big companies have to observe.
Rendering companies like Renegade process the grease for use in animal feed. Commercial biodiesel is manufactured with unused “virgin” oil from sources such as soybeans and canola. Their products have to pass rigorous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency quality tests.
But hobbyists make biodiesel for themselves or others who don’t care that the grease-based product isn’t regulated.
Beverley Miller, who runs Salt Lake City’s Clean Cities program, which promotes the use of alternative fuels, said backyard biodieselers ought to be supported.
“They raised interest in biodiesel long before it appeared here commercially,” she said. “If we hadn’t had the biodieselers brewing, talking about it, it would have inched forward much more slowly.”
Making biodiesel is like brewing your own beer, Miller said. But the comparison unravels because beermakers buy their feedstock while biodieselers want it for free.
“Maybe they should turn into more of a business,” like a food co-op, Miller said. “They’re not ready for that.”
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 