During our most recent H4X PodCast, we briefly touched on the lack of green vehicles in the pending 16 vehicle line-up. Greg Tindale asked, between sessions, if Bio-Diesel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel> were an option for our region. I noted that I thought this had possibilities but that I'm not sure that anyone was looking at it as an option (please tell me I'm wrong).

Today I had the bizarre thought that it might be interesting, as a city, to offer the local current (and pending) deep-fried food establishments some sort of tax credit in exchange for their used frier oil.

Now the following is loaded with many "if" statements, but bear with me for a moment...

If we, as a community, were to centralize collection of used frier oil, we might have a sufficient input quantity to convert it to a reasonable supply of bio-diesel for use in some of our public-works / code enforcement vehicles. This, in-turn, could reduce the city's fuel bill and perhaps even lower our taxes.

If some of the pending 16 vehicle acquisition were bio-diesel compatible, off-the-floor, we could immediately start reaping the rewards of a somewhat closed-loop system (the people's consumption feeds the fleet).

Now converting vegetable oil to bio-diesel is not for novices, but it's not rocket-science either. We have a talented crew of mechanics and engineers in our public-works department who manage to keep our fleet of vehicles road-worthy thru-out the year. I would image that with the right training, and equipment, we could safely render the necessary conversion equipment somewhere on existing city property (perhaps the public works yard).

What do you think?

Does this idea have merit?

If you think so, please contact your local council person and suggest they explore the idea.

(Stepping down off the soap-box)
Peace-out Hyattsville!

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