Vanguard veggie fuel station to open

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

From a story by Dan Gibbard in the Wisconsin State Journal:

BLAIR -- Even in the fringe world of alternative fuels, vegetable oil has mostly remained on the margins, the domain of a few do-it-yourselfers who have rigged their diesels to run on old fryer fat, making the rounds of local burger joints to fill their tanks.

But the veggie power movement is about to stick one greasy toe into the mainstream, as a company in this western Wisconsin town, about 150 miles northwest of Madison, prepares to open what its owners believe is the first recycling and filling station for waste vegetable oil in the Midwest, and one of just a couple in the nation.

"The problem with vegetable oil is not the technology, it 's the infrastructure, " said Coulee Region Bio-Fuels co-owner Taavi McMahon, a lawyer who also is president of PrairieFire Biofuels Cooperative in Madison. "We've been encouraging people to convert to vegetable oil, and when they've asked about fuel availability, we 've said, well, get ready to go Dumpster-diving."