Want to know what a green alternative to regular diesel is? Used vegetable oil.
EGE of Minneola, Kansas takes used cooking oil from over 200 restaurants in Kansas and parts of Oklahoma and converts it to biodiesel, the Dodge City Globe reports.
Wesley Orr, who works for EGE recently gave a small group from Pratt, Greensburg and Minneola a tour of the facility.
Used cooking oil is stored in varying sizes of drums behind restaurants and then pumped into storage tanks for transport back to Minneola.
The process of converting vegetable oil into fuel involves first removing water and other contaminants from the oil, which is then pumped into a nearby processor that uses methanol and potassium hydroxide and continuous flow to convert the oil into biodiesel.
EGE produces 1.5 million gallons of biodiesel annually, a third of which is used by farmers Matt and Luke Jaeger, who own the business.
The fuel is also sold to the public at a pump onsite and once a month, a tanker full of the biodiesel is shipped to Boulder County, Colorado, for use in all of Boulder County's diesel engines.
