Auburn University, already helping Gadsden, Hoover, Montgomery, and Daphne, Alabama run their cities greener, is offering its help to another city wanting to reduce its dependency on oil.
According to this story in the Andalusia (AL) Star News, the town is the latest project for the school’s Natural Resources Management and Development Institute. School representatives were recently in Andalusia to talk to city officials to turn old restaurant and home cooking oil into biodiesel:
The fuel will then be used to power the city’s fleet of diesel vehicles, Mayor Jerry Andrews said.
Andrews said preliminary estimates show that the City of Andalusia can produce enough of the biodiesel products to cut in half its consumption of 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. Other cities are producing biodiesel for $1 gallon, while the current price of diesel is $4 per gallon.
Initially, the city will collect used oil from local restaurants, but the long-term plan is to also provide small containers for reclaiming residential cooking oils.
“If we could recover one tablespoon of household oil per day, that would be four 55-gallon barrels we wouldn’t have to treat in our sewage system lines,” Andrews said.
Officials add the by-products, such as glycerin, can be used for things like soap and lotions.