Come Fry With Me . . . to Ottawa
Oct 23, 2009
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There are two things you should try in Canada that are hard to find south of the border. First, peameal bacon, which is a lean cut of pork, similar to uncured ham, and great on a sandwich or with eggs. Next, there’s poutine, the most pleasurable guilt: French fries with cheese curds and gravy. You’ll either love it or loath it. A calorie bomb, you should only have it once per trip. In Ottawa, “chip wagons” are scattered around the city, parked on street corners offering hot dogs and decadent poutine. Now here’s one question I have: where does all that used cooking oil go?
I’m not really sure. Keeping to my diet, I only had poutine once, and there was a line at the chip wagon. Some research I’ve done indicates that a local university had a one-off project focused on turning chip wagons’ used cooking oil into biodiesel. There’s also a fellow who turns this cooking oil into automobile fuel for himself and about 20 others. One issue this chap, Steve Anderson, faces is that in Ottawa’s cold winter, his chip wagon biofuel thickens when the outside temperature is under 14º Fahrenheit (-10º Celsius), so his product can only work when mixed with conventional diesel. Other projects in Ottawa using stock from oil to micro-brewed beer have started, but none has taken off.
One company, Topia Energy, claims it’s close to marketing biodiesel, but their site has the dubious “coming soon” sign on their site.
I’m not ordinarily an advocate of biofuels. The cultivation of crops for fuel, from corn in the Midwest to palm oil plantations in Indonesia, has been disastrous, creating more environmental problems than solutions . . . and has contributed to the spike in global food prices.
Nevertheless, used cooking oil is a no-brainer, and is a great solution or a local fleet. And it would make me feel less guilty about indulging in poutine . . . that stop alone I think expanded my waistline during my trip to Ottawa.
If anyone in Ottawa is aware of an ambitious biodiesel project, please let us know, because it seems to be a secret to me . . . and there sure are a lot of chip wagons in your city! 