doodadica.com

If your restaurant generates 80 gallons of waste vegetable oil in a week, instead of sealing it in barrels and paying someone to haul it away, you can now pour it into a magical device that will provide you with 5 kilowatts worth of electricity and hot water.

The Vegawatt is the creation of James Peret, a garage inventor who came upon the idea after he converted his truck to run on used vegetable oil.  It uses essentially the same process, only the waste oil is used to power a generator and the heat from combustion is recaptured to pre-heat water going to the restaurant’s water heater.  

And it’s environmentally friendly.  According to the company’s website, the generator, which is certified to Tier 4 EPA emissions standards (the strictest), “is 5% cleaner than the cleanest power plant, 53% cleaner than a fuel-oil generator and 60% cleaner than the majority of power plants in the USA.”

Only installed in one restaurant so far, the $22,000 device (also available for a five year lease of $450/month) is estimated by its inventor to save about $1,000 per month in electricity costs converting the restaurant’s used cooking oil into a commodity worth $2.55 a gallon, and paying for itself in about two years.  Plus it comes with a two year warranty, and routine maintenance is thrown in free of charge.  Not a bad deal.  
Go ahead, give me a reason to order the fried apple pie.