Boston University Turning Waste Cooking Oil into Biofuel Heating Oil

Posted by Jared Killeen on October 5, 2009 at 11:07 am

(image: Boston University via boston.com)

Starting this fall, Boston University will begin recycling cooking oil from on-campus dining halls and using it to help heat thirteen of the university’s buildings.  According to Dennis Carlberg, BU’s director of sustainability, the university hopes to “take what would otherwise be waste from one process and convert it into a technical nutrient–fuel in this case.”  In this way, Boston University will take one step closer toward a more environmentally conscious heating policy, as well as a more financially conservative one. This is because, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, reused cooking oil should release about 70 percent less greenhouse gas than petroleum heating oil, and also cost less.

As noted on BU’s website, the university produces 5,000 gallons of cooking oil waste a year. Still, when recycled, waste oil will comprise only a fraction of the total oil used to heat the university’s buildings annually. The university sees the current initiative as a pilot program, one that will test the feasibility of incorporating large amounts of biofuel in the campus heating system without creating adverse effects. Carlberg hopes that the percentage of recycled oil used to heat the campus will gradually increase.

The idea of recycling cooking oil to heat campus buildings came to BU from Save That Stuff, a company that collects 100 tons of reusable material from the university a month. The organization has been working with BU and a variety of Charlestown businesses to promote the use of reusable biofuels. As part of its effort, Save That Stuff supplies its clients with clean equipment and collects used cooking oil regularly, contending that with minimal modifications, properly treated cooking oil can be used in most residential furnaces and industrial heating systems designed to burn No. 2 or No. 4 heating oil.

Waste cooking oil from BU's kitchens is reused to heat campus buildings. Watch a slide show of the process at bu.edu/today (image: bu.edu)

The university’s policy is in tune with Massachusetts’s Clean Energy Biofuels Act, a state mandate ordering that all heating oil include a certain percentage of biofuels derived from waste feedstocks. Beginning in 2010, all diesel and heating oil sold in Massachusetts must include 2 percent biofuels; by 2013, this will increase to 5 percent. Critics of the Act have described it as being too strict in excluding non-waste feed stocks and several other forms of available biofuel. According to this argument, if the 2 percent minimum requirement does go into effect next year, heating oil customers might expect a slight increase in their home heating bills, especially if the permitted biofuels are limited to those derived from waste.

Until such time as other biofuel sources–like ethanol, algae, switchgrass, and agricultural waste–are accepted under the Clean Energy Biofuels Act, Massachusetts residents hoping for an increased supply of waste-derived biofuels might consider saving used oil at home. However, this is not likely to be a realistic alternative because of the dangers and complexity of producing home biofuel. As reported by Alternative Energy News, “one of the most popular myths about biofuel is that producing [it] at home is easy, and that anyone can do it. The dangers of making fuel at home [include] working with large quantities of toxic and flammable fluids [and lack of] extensive technical experience and safety [training].” In addition, a homeowner might well be daunted by the actual costs and the diligence required to meet environmental safety regulations. For now, waste-derived biofuel production should be left to the professionals.