It almost doesn’t seem fair.
All anyone talks about when you mention the rising price of gasoline and the general fuel nightmare that the country is slowly sliding into is: “We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
There are lots of proposals, from opening up drilling fields in Alaska to alternative fuel research.
But there is one potential solution that could make a great deal of difference: running diesel vehicles on used restaurant frying oil, which can be done with a few modifications.
How much French fry grease is there in America? Well, without knowing for sure, a LOT. McDonald’s alone has more than 15,000 franchises throughout the world. At roughly 2-4 fryers per restaurant, that’s a lot of grease. Chicken giant Tyson Foods produces animal fat/grease that literally reaches billions of pounds.
And talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil! Restaurant grease comes from a renewable resource (whatever plant you choose to cull the oil from), the grease gets just about the same gas mileage as regular diesel, and it’ll smell like lunch wherever you go!
Of course, there’s a small problem: strictly speaking, if you drive your diesel truck on the road using fryolator oil, you’re committing tax evasion, unless you’ve acquired it from an approved dealer and at least one of you is paying taxes on it.
And there is the large problem with this seemingly-easy solution: the fuel tax we pay goes to the state and federal highway authorities, to maintain the road system we all use (“It’s a sort of user fee,” said DelDOT’s Darrel Cole).
So it’s almost a Catch-22: if we were to reduce our need to purchase foreign oil by running trucks on grease, it would inevitably create a sizeable gap in road funding – I think we’re all aware of DelDOT’s current budgeting troubles – at both a local and national level.
But at some point – we’ll put the over-under at $5.50 per gallon – a tough choice may have to be made between breaking drivers’ banks and letting a few more potholes go unpatched.
