Grease Run at Piedmont Biofuels

First, you might ask, "what the heck is a grease run!?!" Its definitely not a variation on that slip-n-slide you had when you were a kid... ick! It is merely shorthand for waste vegetable oil feedstock collections in the sustainable biodiesel business. Doesn't grease run sound more fun? It is a dirty job, collecting wvo, but its for a great cause -- making biodiesel out of the waste oil local restaurants and other cooking facilities need to dispose anyway.

We are partnered with Piedmont Biofuels in the construction of our biodiesel facility here at STARworks. They asked if I wanted to go on a celebrity grease run with Moya and Kate. As Lyle Estill indicated, they are rock stars, or perhaps a binary star system of grease collections at Piedmont. In a recent energy blog entry, Lyle discussed the inaugural celebrity grease run with his wife, Tami.

After waking at 430 yesterday morning to feed my laying hens and all the cats and dogs, I tooled over to Pittsboro to get some education. I met Moya and Kate at Lorax Lane to begin the grease run. I hopped into their pump truck, affectionately named Norma Jean, which was built by Bill Abernethy over in Vale, NC. It is a quite a system they have worked out, with routes planned monthly for picking up wvo from their region. Moya and Kate also have Earl, their GPS system, to help(sometimes) in navigating around the Triangle. We trekked all over Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Pittsboro collecting grease from so many places throughout the day. One place, Dale's Indian Cuisine, kindly provided us with some very tasty mango lassies. Thank you so much Dale!!! It was quite a tasty treat... especially on a hot day pumping grease.

We returned to Piedmont Biofuels with a loaded tank of waste veggie oil just in time for Kate to go to class in the Biofuels program at CCCC. It was a very educational day riding with Moya and Kate. They patiently educated me regarding the finer points of grease collection for making sustainable biodiesel: pallets, stickers, barrels, clean collection areas, and so much more. It was obvious they knew what they were doing, just looking at our clothes at the end of the day. I was covered in spots literally from head to toe in grease stains, not realizing how best to hold the grease collection hose and stinger. They weren't quite so filthy. I wish I had a camera to take some before and after pics as proof. Maybe next time. Speaking of which, I guess I didn't do too poorly, because Moya and Kate said I could come back any time I wanted to go on another grease run. I highly recommend it! I hope everyone has a groovy holiday weekend.