San Francisco Plans The City’s First Grease-To-Biodiesel Plant

Biodiesel lovers of San Francisco, rejoice. Starting next Winter, you might not have as much competition when you scour the back alleys behind Chinese restaurants trying to get your car fuel fix.

That’s because the city has just received a $1 million dollar grant from the California Energy Commission to build San Francisco’s first grease-to-biodiesel production facility.

Instead of using the more popular “yellow grease”—fryer oil— the production facility will make use of “brown grease”, or pan scrapings and oil residue trapped in grease interceptors under a restaurant sink. In the past, brown grease has been discarded at sewage plants. Now San Francisco wants to make use of the more than 2.5 million gallons of the stuff that’s in the city.

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The plant will refine the grease into 3 grades of biodiesel that can be used to run vehicles, serve electrical and heating needs, and run sewage treatment plant diesel turbines and pumps.

Hopefully, the new effort will help cover the one billion gallon shortfall of biodiesel in California that is anticipated by 2022, since there is nearly twice as much brown grease in the city as yellow grease.

According to Mayor Gavin Newsom, the brown-grease-to-biodiesel plant, scheduled to be completed in December 2008, will “break new ground for sustainable fuel production in California and serve as a model for the entire state.”

And with biofuel prices in San Francisco currently at $5.52/gal, alternatives are sorely needed.

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