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American Morning

Fuel From Recycled Cooking Oil Hits California Market

Aired May 23, 2001 - 09:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: There's an alternative fuel hitting the market today. It comes from recycled cooking oils.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is looking at the move from the fryer to the fuel pump. It's happening in California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Out of the french fryer and into the fuel tank. Recycling trucks in Berkeley, California, are the latest to fire up their engines with a clean- burning vegetable oil alternative to dirty diesel. It's called biodiesel.

TOM FARRELL, BERKELEY PUBLIC WORKS: We're trying to diversify our fuel sources. We're also trying to reduce pollution, and biodiesel does reduce pollution significantly.

DORNIN: Now diesel drivers in San Francisco will be able to pump soybean oil directly into their tanks. Olympian commercial fueling stations are opening the first ever biodiesel pumps.

RUSTY FIRENZE, OLYMPIAN COMMERCIAL FUELING: It's a renewable resource that can be produced. It takes full advantage of the present fueling infrastructure we have in place. You don't have to add new tanks or new dispensers.

DORNIN: One-hundred-percent soybean oil will run about $2.99 a gallon, but operators here expect commercial fleets to mix the two right in the tank, 20 percent vegetable oil and 80 percent diesel, raising the cost only about 15 percent higher than diesel, but still cleaning up the air.

FIRENZE: Fleets are going to give it far more consideration than they did in the past because it's far more competitively priced to do so.

DORNIN: But can soybean farms grow enough to economically fuel the nation's transportation industry?

DAN SPERLING, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS: Will oil prices ever go up high enough to make biodiesel economically attractive? And the answer is probably no, and the reason for that is because there is still a lot of oil available. DORNIN: From postal trucks in Florida to garbage trucks in San Jose, California, public truck fleets must, by law, clean up their emissions, and many are dumping vegetable oil into the tank rather than buying new vehicles.

Olympia officials say the target now is commercial use, but consumers `are welcome if they want to pay the price.

FIRENZE: If the individual has a real commitment to his environment, they will make those choices, but for the most part, because of the cost, the individuals just aren't going to do it.

DORNIN: Unless being clean and green drives them to it.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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