Why New or Used Oils Can Make Biodiesel

"GRAYDON BLAIR: My name is Graydon Blair from Utah Biodiesel Supply and on behalf of Expert Village, I want to tell you about the difference between making biodiesel from new oil versus waste vegetable oil. First of all, new oil. If I was to walk into Wal-Mart and buy new oil such as canola or corn oil or different things, there's one problem. It's really, really, really expensive. In fact, for a gallon of canola oil, we're running almost $4.25 a gallon. I don't know about you but that's a little bit more than diesel fuel right now. However, it makes great biodiesel and in fact, most of the commercial biodiesel made in the United States today is made from new oil. Used oil, cheap, cheap, cheap. However, you've got to go out and collect it instead of driving to the store and getting it. Now, I want to show you what the difference looks like. First and foremost, when you make biodiesel, both will make biodiesel but new vegetable oil is always going to be easier to make. Notice how much clear--let's get a shot of that, how clear that is. This is waste vegetable oil. This is oil that came from a restaurant. Kinda gross, kinda nasty, kinda smells like it. But we can still make biodiesel from it. However, the gel point of the biodiesel made from the new oil is a little bit high--lower than biodiesel made from used oil. So, you can make it from either one, it depends on what your pocket book is like. I recommend you use vegetable oil."