RENO, Nevada, July 27, 2004 (ENS) – The University of Nevada at Reno has won a $69,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to find a cleaner, more cost-effective way to produce biodiesel from waste cooking oil.
Biodiesel fuel is non-toxic, biodegradable and creates less air pollution than petroleum diesel. It is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar, the EPA says.
The grant will be used to fund a pilot project that will use ethanol to convert both virgin and waste cooking oil to biodiesel in a large-scale mobile continuous process unit.
The mobile production unit built by the university will be less expensive and cleaner to operate than the conventional process. Current methods to produce biodiesel are costly and require the use of methanol, which is toxic, corrosive and creates air pollutants. The project will use ethanol, which is less volatile, less toxic and cleaner.
There is no shortage of cooking oil to put through the process unit. U.S. restaurants and hotels produce over three million gallons of waste cooking oil annually, most of which ends up in sewers and landfills.
The university will utilize the biodiesel it produces to meet all of its diesel energy needs.
Another customer for the university's biodiesel fuel is just a few hundred miles down the road.
The Las Vegas area Clark County School district has 1,000 vehicles that are fueled with biodiesel, making it the largest biodiesel fleet in the world. Most of the biodiesel is produced with used frying oil from the Las Vegas casinos.
"Thanks to this project, yesterday's french fry grease is tomorrow's truck fuel," said Jeff Scott, director of the EPA's waste division for the PacificSouthwest office.
"Biodiesel is not only a viable alternative fuel with air quality benefits, but its use can also reduce the amount and expense of waste that gets sent to landfills across the country," said Scott.
The University of Nevada will work with the Washoe County District Health Department and the Nevada Department of Agriculture on this project.
A current list of fuel marketers that are registered to provide biodiesel fuel is available at http://www.biodiesel.org.
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