Betty’s Biodiesel Blog

After ready about another attack in Iraq where 9 children died I write this blog…

Amazing to me how a woman who gestates for 9 months can fathom her child taken from her by a bullet from a supposed anti-terrorist group. She can’t fathom it, all she sees and feels every waking day after the death of her child is exactly that terror that we are trying to stop, or are we.
Are we simply packing this so called war on terrorism like we package everything else in America? Do you want that Small. Medium, Large, Extra large, or Supersized.

We the people of this country are getting dumbed down, overplayed, patronized and belittled by our own people. Being in the advertising industry myself, I was nauseated to see how much we have reduced our individual uniqueness down to buying patterns, ratings, polls, stats, and colorful ads that dig deep into our abused psyche. The more we are dumbed down, the more the slick advertisers have us by our minds and pocketbooks. And in my little world of Go Green, shop local, buy organic, go vegetarian, go raw, cleanse, reduce, reuse, recycle, I meet others that are doing some if not all of these things and think “wow we really have a chance”, then I board public transit, get a whiff of “Chemie” cologne from a guy going down the aisle carrying two plastic bags filled with personal items from Rite Aid and think, “wow we have a far far way to go”.

Back to the kids…they deserve more, they deserve better than allowing their sweet innocent bodies to get killed by our insane quest for control over resources that is an end game. This quest is simply the visual ugliness in addiction. The addict in total denial about to have a serious wake up call, oh wait that’s what New Orleans was and yet we still forge ahead in clearing Iraq of its terrorists…has anyone ever thought of us in fact being the ones that provoke terror. I know that “Secure the area” = blow it all up, riddle it with bullets while our 18 year old soldiers play Black Sabbath on their ipods as if they were in a video game totally unconnected to reality.  Yet they too pay a price. We see it in the stories of the guys that get home. Finally here maybe missing a limb here or there, troubled with PTSD, finding “home” to be a joke compared to where they were just at. Meanwhile we talk of Iraq like it is this other place, this shithole for our boys to experience the world get totally f____d in the head and never imagine it for its beauty. The crafting, the food, the people, the kids. The second we summarize Iraq into one category we summarize all of humanity into that category. It’s like categorizing all Californians as blonde surfers who have beautiful bodies and hang out on the beach everyday. Or take this radical perspective and imagine humans from a lab rats perspective…who are we to them? put aside for a moment the blah blah story of how their testing helps us and really get into their reality or an Iraqi child for that matter. We are not leading, we are killing, maiming and continuing in our denial.

Somewhere in all of this dismay, disbelief and what I call unfathomable, I think to myself what am I doing about it? First, I think alot and then I think not enough. Writing this blog is a start because if it reaches one person who feels the same way and chooses to do something about it then it is worth it. If it reaches no one and helps me through the immediate pain of hearing about people especially children dying from bullet wounds then it is worth it. I have pain in my jaw and heartache in my heart for the way humanity treats one another and all other forms of life and I have to include myself in this harm for if I drive my car even if on biodiesel, I contribute to the use of roads, oil, metal, energy use, etc. All the things that create resource wars. So what do I do. I sell my car and challenge myself to get around by public transportation, which is not everywhere I want to go. Or I keep my car and pay money into offsetting the carbon I emit as well as offset the carbon I emitted since birth. But let’s not stop at the carbon offset, how about a social costs for kids that get maimed and are still alive, wouldn’t they need help? I could pay money into a orphanage that helps kids that are maimed by the war, or help returning vets with getting healing treatments. I could put my time and energy into so many things that are restorative rather than harmful. This is the shift we have been waiting for and I’ve been waiting to write this piece to get a reminder of that.

HI this is Lindsay aka Betty Biodiesel chiming in with a lengthy dialogue about the use of including call out for a gathering of the biodiesel minds, an Econ 101 reality check, and a reward at the bottom for all to take part in. I want to start off by offering some background on the rendered grease industry. I was made aware by Eric Bowen, that back in the 70’s renderers were paying to take the waste grease from restaurants. Once cheap palm oil entered the scene it was easier to get cheap feedstock for animal fee, makeup, heating oil, etc. This is when renderers started charging to collect to cover costs. Now however with the advent of the biodiesel industry we are seeing that sway back to the benefit of the restaurant (which if you ask me is one of the riskiest ventures one could start). So now we have individuals offering .20 gal, picking it up for free, etc. This shift of course will send waves into all industries as the demand for the same commodity increase. I believe some of us saw the writing on the wall years ago of the grease grab coming to fruition. Now enter Blue Sky Biofuels or any other grease collector for biodiesel who is building a sizeable facility in the bay or NCA. Blue Sky’s mission is to produce high quality Biodiesel from waste grease for use in school buses Our reasoning for school buses is this, if an area can only produce X amt of recycled feedstock (let’s say 2-5 million gallons per year) then where should it go first? Our kids. I have seen very little in the biodiesel industry communicated about “first use” but as enviros, sustainability nuts, this is a very important focus to have. There is much information and scientific study about why our kids need it first and I will leave that for you to research at www.biofuels4schools.org. However, if you know any kid with asthma that rides the school bus, get them to use a carbon filter mask from icanbreathe.com and that should help the breathing, but not the teasing. Unfortunately the “first use for school buses” leaves the individual car user way last on the receiving line. If you follow any of the recommendations for global change, personal car use is the first to be raised as the biggest contributor. (15 billion gallons of gas are used yearly in CA, and we are 2nd to the nation for fuel consumption…any change here sends out a large message). But I digress… Biodiesel sales in the bay area are going up and up 90% of the biodiesel is coming from midwest soy, (thank you ladies at biofuel Oasis for buying recycled as well as Yokayo for making it) Which by the way, the reason why no one is making biodiesel from virgin soy in CA is due to cost per lb being .10 higher than it was a year ago, making it ridiculous to make biodiesel in CA using that feedstock. What we have is an Econ 101 issue, increase in demand and decrease in supply, meanwhile tack on and additional angle of “first use”, the fact that CA land is pricey and no virgin oil is grown here, and what you have left are people doing the math and paying restaurants for their waste grease. Believe me, Blue Sky would rather charge for their grease but in most cases, we have to pick it up for free and rarely do we pay if any at all because we don’t want to start that slippery slope and yet market indicators are such that it is heading BACK to that way, like it or not. However another important thing to bring up is while this listserve serves a good purpose in getting dialogue started, I do remember when the leaders of the NCA Biodiesel industry wouldn’t wait for BBI or the NBB to host a conference to get together and discuss this Biodiesel movement in CA. I remember meetings for the biodiesel council, biofuel oasis, the summit, etc. These were very important times for people to get together and talk. In 2002/03, I was just a little bitty sunflower growing and Yokayo was selling biodiesel in 55 gallon drums delivered at no extra cost. NOW 5 years later, we are all maturing in our business models, our experience, more funding is entering the “biofuels” industry than ever before. CARB, the one that was so against biodiesel years ago, is now shelling out millions in grants to biodiesel manufacturers and has committed funding to test the blends. In fact, I get an interested investor a week emailing me about investing in a Biodiesel facility and hear monthly of other biodiesel plants interested in setting up shop in the bay area. Understandable, as the realities of Global warming are sending politicians scrambling, which sends the money managers calling and it is all starts sounding like the 12 days of biodiesel. On that note, I would like to co convene a Bay Area Biodiesel meeting, long overdue to have WVO users, biodiesel users, restaurants, biodiesel manufacturers, fleet operators, school districts, etc. be at the table. If this kind of meeting doesn’t happen, then we all continue to scurry around in our own small world unaware of what each of us is doing. So if you’ve read this far and are interested in assisting with such a meeting please email me. It is possible we could host something at the PG&E building, a library, etc. I hope what I have written here was worth the read and I look forward to continued dialogue around this issue that affects all of us, even if we have self identified with a company, group, etc. We are all still human beings trapped in this capitalistic system that needs a serious swift kick in the a_ _ to make real change happen. Also, I’ve noticed in the last year I have had to use terms like WVO, UCO, IKG, FOG, Yellow Grease, Brown Grease, etc. and I think it is good for us in the industry to come to consensus on what these terms actually mean, where they were generated from, etc. Imagine teaching your grandman about these terms. I’d like to think of this term sheet as a work in progress. I’ll be the keeper of the list to edit and rephrase, and send back out after we’ve all had a chance to send it our edits. So send in your edits and any terms I forgot to mention. FOG- Fats, Oils and Grease. A term used widely by municipalities or governing bodies that deal with sewers. When they say they have a FOG problem it refers to the fact that millions are putting used cooking oil down the drain and clogging up our sewers, costing millions of dollars in clean up. IKG- Inedible Kitchen Grease- That grease which comes directly from the restaurant unfiltered or processed. UCO- Used Cooking Oil- Same as IKG but also used in official licensing documents for transporting this oil. Waste Grease- same as IKG but used among the WVO users and biodiesel industry. WVO - Wast Vegetable Oil- Same as IKG but heavily used in the WVO industry. Yellow Grease- IKG, UCO, or WVO that has been picked up, transported, filtered, heated blended, etc by a renderer and now available for sale to feed lots, makeup manuf., shipped off to Asia for heating oil use, etc. This is a commodity that is sold globally. This is considered recycled content and gets .50/gal for making Biodiesel. Brown Grease-This is actually gray in color and is the FOG that gets caught up in sewer lines and wreaks havoc. This is the stuff that made the SFPUC focus on collecting waste grease and soon starting a residential program to have people stop putting their UCO down the drain. White Grease- Virgin animal fat coming from meat plants or renderers and is considered agri biodiesel and gets the 1.00 per gallon tax credit