City leaders want to make biodiesel from liquefied animal parts

By Matthew Hirsch

Forget the Middle East. Forget Chevron and its crude oil. If all goes as planned for Mayor Gavin Newsom's clean technology team, some city vehicles may soon get their fuel from a greasy, yellowish liquid distilled from the inedible remains of slaughtered cattle – plus some pigs, sheep, and chickens.

This proposal, which can be found in a report released last month by Newsom's Clean Technology Advisory Council, calls for using animal fat from a Bayview District rendering plant to make five million gallons of biodiesel per year. Local environmental officials say they're still hashing out the details but hope to see biodiesel made widely available at fuel pumps in the near future.

"It's seen as a boutique fuel for people who can afford it, and we want to make it a fuel for everyday people," Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, told the Bay Guardian.

At five million gallons, San Francisco would quickly become home to one of the nation's top biodiesel producers. It's a substantial commitment and a particularly dicey one considering nobody's yet perfected the art of making hippie fuel out of scraps from the butcher's floor. Meat-based fuel also has a least one technical hitch not associated with its vegetable-based cousin, which has had shortcomings of its own.

In 2003 the city of Berkeley switched to pure, veggie-based biodiesel for its vehicles, but that experiment failed after two years, largely because of mechanical problems associated with the fuel. So San Francisco will have to improve on Berkeley's less novel, less ambitious effort.

And then there's the small matter of getting biodiesel enthusiasts, many of whom wouldn't so much as nibble a shred of hamburger meat, to support the idea of grinding up cows, then slowly boiling them down at about 275 degrees and using their processed innards for San Francisco's "clean technology" centerpiece.

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Of all these challenges, the actual conversion of vehicles to biodiesel is the easy part. Basically, you stop using standard diesel fuel and fill up with biodiesel, or a petroleum-biodiesel blend, instead. (There are, of course, a few mechanical things you need to know. Visit www.biodiesel.org for more information.)

Eric Bowen, an investment banker who drives a 1997 Volkswagen Passat, said he switched to biodiesel three years ago. Since then, his car has run more quietly and smoothly, and Bowen said he's even noticed a more pleasant smell while driving.

Bowen told us the investment community has a "gold-rush mentality" about biodiesel. "Everybody's looking to get into biodiesel," he said. That means US production – which is projected to hit 75 million gallons this year – will probably keep going up, and with the increased supply may come lower prices at the fuel pump.

A member of Newsom's clean tech team, Bowen said the proposal to make biodiesel here in San Francisco will help grow the industry.

It's unclear what role Darling International, the Texas-based company that owns the Bayview rendering plant, will have in this plan. Darling executives could conceivably be preparing to enter the biodiesel business, or they might simply sell the tallow, a liquid animal by-product that's used to make soap, cosmetics – and now biodiesel. Darling officials did not return our calls.

Part of the problem so far with biodiesel is that production standards are low, and consumers sometimes end up with a bad batch of fuel that can cause serious engine damage. In March the city of Berkeley downgraded from 100 percent biodiesel to a 20 percent blend after finding some vehicles with clogged fuel injectors and engine filters.

Biodiesel buffs have criticized the switch from pure biodiesel, which they said was probably the result of either a bad batch of fuel or improper handling by Berkeley's vehicle maintenance crew. Bowen, who did not want to be portrayed as criticizing anyone, said, "When made right and at a high quality, [biodiesel] works seamlessly in a diesel engine."

Blumenfeld, the Environment Department director, said city officials have carefully crafted standards for biodiesel suppliers as part of the fuel contract for city-owned vehicles, which goes out to bid later this month. He hopes the standards will ensure the city gets high-quality biodiesel, delivered reliably – just as if it were buying fuel from a giant company like Chevron.

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Muni and the San Francisco Fire Department plan to test biodiesel in their vehicles sometime next year. Depending on the supply that's made available, the Fire Department hopes to use 1,000 gallons of 20 percent biodiesel for six months, then up its consumption to 12,000 gallons a month. Muni, with about 600 diesel buses, could use much more fuel, though it hasn't offered any estimates yet. Muni typically consumes about seven million gallons of diesel fuel per year.

The challenge, Blumenfeld said, is finding a dependable supply of biodiesel that's produced locally. Most of the biodiesel sold commercially in the Bay Area comes from Vallejo, and the rest is shipped in from east of the Mississippi River. That's a big reason why the city wants to use animal fat for fuel, Blumenfeld said.

Because of the air pollution caused by transporting fuel, "it doesn't make sense from a climate perspective if you're trucking in biodiesel from the Midwest," Blumenfeld said.

Perhaps not, but animal rights activists say it doesn't make sense to use animal corpses when most biodiesel is already made with perfectly good vegetable crops – usually soy or rapeseed. Jon Bauer, a member of the Berkeley Biodiesel Cooperative who brews his own biodiesel fuel, said there's another reason not to use animal fat. It's not practical, he said.

"It's just going to make fuel that jells at a higher temperature," essentially turning biodiesel into jelly that's certain to clog up engines, Bauer said.

The people who support using animal fat for biodiesel, like Bowen, say there are additives you can mix into biodiesel to keep it from turning gelatinous. The process of making fuels from animal parts is still quite new, they say, and much of the research now seems to focus on making alternative fuel from chickens, not cows.

But rather than shy away from the potential drawbacks of animal-based biodiesel, they're pushing full steam ahead.

"If we're going to be stuck with diesel, we should get to using biodiesel as quickly as possible," Jennifer Entine-Matz, San Francisco's clean tech program manager, told us.

Here's one thought that might sway some greens who are wary of driving around with liquefied animal inside their engines: By taking waste products and putting them to good use, rendering could be considered another form of recycling. But is this the kind of recycling this city's Earth-lovers have in mind?

E-mail Matthew Hirsch at matthew@sfbg.com.