Stanford Report, January 25, 2006
Quick facts
Stanford generates roughly 6,250 gallons of waste vegetable oil per year, with somewhere between 4,000 and 5,500 gallons coming from the kitchens of Wilbur, Stern, Lagunita, Florence Moore, Ricker and Manzanita. Other kitchens that contribute serve Cluster I, II and III, the Row Houses, Governor's Corner, Yost, Schwab, Olive's, Linx, Tresidder and concessions at athletic venues. In 2004, Residential and Dining Enterprises paid $2,730 to dispose of waste cooking oil generated at the six dining hall kitchens. Given a pickup rate of about $35 per drum, an estimated 4,200 gallons was picked up that year. R&DE purchased approximately 5,500 gallons of new cooking oil (fry oil and shortening) in 2004. (About 15 to 30 percent of that was absorbed by the food being cooked.) Currently, more than 4 million gallons of biodiesel fuel is used in California annually. Many current biodiesel blends mix a soybean product with petroleum diesel, although feedstock can come from almost any seed crop. The California Energy Commission offers fact sheets on biodiesel and other alternative fuels at http://www.energy.ca.gov/afvs/index.html.Sources: Stanford Environmental Health and Safety and California Energy Commission
