It May Be Renewable But Is It Vegetarian? Dynamic Fuels to Make Jet Fuel From Animal Fat
by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 10. 9.08
photo: FarmSanctuary.org
Fellow TreeHugger Sami Grover covered the chicken fat-to-biodiesel controversy in North Carolina back in January. After hearing about this next announcement, I’m going to bring it up again: Is a fuel made from animal fats vegetarian or vegan? If it uses beef fat could it be used in good conscience by Hindus? Pork fat: Muslims or Jews? But I get ahead of myself...the news first.
Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture between Tyson Foods and Syntroleum Corp. has begun construction on a new fuel plant in Geismar, Louisiana which will be making biodiesel and jet fuel from “non-food grade animal fats such as beef tallow, pork lard, chicken fat and greases.”
Here are the details:
75 Million Gallons Per Year by 2010
According to NWAnews.com the new $138 million facility will have a capacity of 75 million gallons per year and employ 45 people when it is completed some time in 2010.
Despite the recent drops in oil prices, the senior vice president of Tyson Foods’ renewable products group Jeff Webster remained upbeat about the prospects for the plant:
The demand is partially driven by fuel prices, but the larger factors are energy independence and national security concerns about relying on foreign imports.
Do Ethics or Pragmatism Win the Day?
That’s all fine and good, and were it not for the feedstock to be used in this fuel, I might have been inclined to overlook this story as just another biofuels plant opening. Maybe a few years ago simply opening a plant was noteworthy, but today it’s got to be a little more interesting for me to pass it on. And that’s where the feedstock comes in; I return to the question that I led with.
If you are using beef tallow, pork lard, or chicken fat can you ethically use this fuel if you’re vegetarian, vegan, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu?
Or do you come down on the side of pragmatism, as Sami did when he reported on the North Carolina story: It may be coming from a less-than-ideal source—in fact considering Tyson is involved in this venture, the animals fats are a direct byproduct of factory farming—but it’s still better than using petroleum.
Is a Byproduct of Factory Farming Really Ever Green?
To address the lesser of two evils argument, I’d ask whether if the whole life-cycle of industrial animal raising is factored into the ultimate carbon footprint of this particular variety of biodiesel or jet fuel, do the environmental benefits, the carbon-neutral claims typical with such fuels, not just fly out the window?
If Entire Lifecycle Taken Into Account, Is It Really Better Than Petroleum?
It’s one thing to make that claim for plant-based fuels (ignoring land-conversion issues as they related to carbon emissions), but I don’t think you can make the same claim with an animal-based fuel. It may be waste that would otherwise be disposed of, and it may be a renewable source of energy, but the environmental impact of how that waste came into being is far from benign. I don’t have statistics to say that a biofuel made from waste from the beef, pork or poultry industry is x times better or worse than petroleum in terms of carbon emissions, but it’s something that can’t be automatically assumed to be better.
You could argue, as Sami did, that industrial farming isn't going away and that at least the waste could be used for better purposes, but I don't think we can view the issues in isolation. Certainly neither factory farming, industrial agriculture, nor petroleum fuels will be eliminated overnight, or even over the next decade perhaps, but that is the direction we must head. I'm not convinced that using the waste products of factory farming in any way significantly contributes to its elimination, or to decreasing fossil fuel dependence.
Readers, Weigh In
Though if there were check boxes next to the five categories of conviction I listed above I could check off two of them, I’m going to confine my comments on this one to the lesser of two evils argument. What I want to know from readers is how you view this: If you’re vegetarian, vegan, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or simply concerned about the impacts of industrial farming and animal raising, is a fuel based on animal fats acceptable to you?
via :: NWAnews.com
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You're making biodiesel from waste animal fat from mass-produced poultry and livestock, fed with conventionally-farmed grain (mostly corn) that is mostly fertlized with petroleum-based fertilizers. Seems really inefficient. I mean, if all you care about is turning an agricultural waste product into something useful, then great; if you're actually looking at the whole chain then the utility is dubious.
Okay, I'm not a vegetarian, not a Hindu, and any of those other things that you mentioned. I am, however, pragmatic. Let's face the truth - people are NOT going to give up eating chicken. Just like women are not going to give up having abortions. The argument given above treds the same ground as the stem cell argument. People will keep disposing of animal fat and fetuses, so we might as well use that waste to better humanity. Call me cold, but this seems to be the most logical way.
Having just moved from North Carolina, I was actually a member of Piedmont Biofuels, whose principle feedstock during the summer is chicken grease (sadly this biodiesel solidifies at pretty high temperatures, like 40+ degrees). Therefore I've run the chicken fat based biodiesel in my car. The first time I found out about it, I was taken aback for a second. I was really excited about biodiesel because it could be made from waste vegetable oil. The chicken fat basically freegan, so I decided I was okay with it, especially since I didn't have a good way to procure any type of oil in decent quantities on my own.
The big thing is, for Piedmont, it's almost impossible to get enough of anything else these days except for small scale batches. With the price of petroleum products up and the limited supply of oil feedstocks (which could only supply a few percent of our diesel needs nationally if we used every drop of oil that comes to the USA), they're all expensive and end up costing as much or more than regular diesel after ASTM certification. So in the end, I think pragmatism has to take some precedence over purely ethical considerations. This product is local (as opposed to palm oil or others that would have to be shipped from the tropics or the plains) and new production of local oil crops is pretty theoretical, canola can grow, but has little track record to show farmers in Eastern NC and peanuts, well they're expensive to harvest so new production takes a huge investment. Burning more petrodiesel isn't exactly ethical either and to me, it IS basically a waste product from an animal whose carbon footprint and ethical footprint are basically a "sunk cost" at this point. And finally even if buying this grease does somewhat reimburse the factory farm industry for a waste product, its the chicken sandwich a day crowd that actually makes the industry economical.
Sorry to say it, but the math doesn't add up.
What does 1 pound of animal fat produce in fat calories? Maybe 3500 calories. How many calories in energy do we spend getting those calories? Probably 5-10 times the amount under current farming practices. Not to mention the water and otherwise available to humans food inputs to grow the chickens, cows, pigs etc.
Not to be alarmist but this is a general trend towards the devaluation of life. Growing algae or soy for jet fuel is one thing, but chickens and cows another.
What's next? Enslaved human labor?... humans don't consume petroleum after all.
Here's another complicating factor: most diesel fuel here in the states is used for transporting goods, in trucks. Can a product be vegan if it was shipped in an animal fat biodiesel powered truck?
Is there any ethical system that despise the use of dinosaurs' juice?
(bangs head on keyboard)
Israeli warpalnes turn away airliner powered by bio-jet-fuel rendered from pig fat becuase it wasn't Kosher.
Muslims protest pork-flavored E85 blends are SuperAmerica station.
PETA blockades refinery over ethical treatment of bio-diesel stocks containing factory farmed chickens.
Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis refuse to transport people who have been drinking or who are carrying alcohol.
3 of those 4 lines I made up, the last one is true, today at least, I'm sure time will make another one of thise true too. How is any progress going to be made when there seems to be an unending list of excuse put up to stop it?
Oh well, "How highs the water momma?"
-Lego