Converting waste vegetable fryer oil (WVO) into biodiesel has become a pop culture trend in the western world. The average person may not understand it, but those who can perform the alchemy of producing home-brewed biodiesel are granted exalted status.

As is so often the case, North Americans tend to forget that they make up only a small percent of the world’s population, forgetting about the Europeans, who were the first to create biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. In 1983, Dr. Mittelbach studied the transesterification of WVO and went on to develop a commercial process to produce biodiesel from the financially attractive feedstock, earning him the World Energy Globe Award in 2001 and World Climate Star in 2003.

Closer to home, Dr. Thomas B. Reed is credited as the first person to roll up his sleeves and jump into a garbage dumpster to recover some precious WVO in an attempt to produce biodiesel. “In the summer of 1989, I learned about the conversion of animal fats and vegetable oils into their methyl ester for fuel purposes after attending some sessions at the US Department of Agriculture,” states Dr. Reed. “Although they were speaking about converting refined oils at the proceedings, I wondered if the same process would work with waste oils after I discovered that there happened to be about a billion gallons a year of this stuff.”

With the wonderment of a 10-year-old, Dr. Reed headed over to his local McDonald’s restaurant and picked up a gallon of waste grease from the dumpster out back. “I took the icky stuff back to my laboratory at the Colorado School of Mines, where I worked at the time,” Dr. Reed explains. “Wow! Just like that I produced a batch of beautiful biodiesel fuel.”

“I didn’t think the chemical name “transesterified waste vegetable oil” would win anyone over, so considering the source of the feedstock I decided to call my fuel McDiesel. I even applied for a copyright, but after a chat with the powers that be in the firm I decided my original name, “biodiesel,” wasn’t so bad!” exclaims Dr. Reed. “After these years, the new name has stuck, but I still think McDiesel was a pretty snazzy choice.”

Dr. Reed continues his story by explaining that, “the Denver bus company was considering alternative fuels and we approached them to see if they would be interested in testing our alternative, clean fuel. “Yes,” they said, “but we need more than a gallon for testing.” So I went to our onsite laboratory at the School and made 2 drums (100 gallons) for their test program. Unfortunately, there was no political base for using WVO at the time and the concept went underground. The rest is history.”

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