The Utah County Biodiesel Co-op was formed to utilize waste vegetable oil in the county and turn it into a useful product...biodiesel. The impetus for this was when the price of diesel got higher than the price of gas at the pump and broke $3/gallon. I had been researching this for quite some time beforehand, but when the price went up I began to gather futher information.

I was willing to process the biodiesel, but I didn't want to chase the oil. It turns out there was another person in the Southern part of Utah county who was interested, but didn't have room for the processor, just wanted to chase the oil. After some discussion, we decided to form the Utah County Biodiesel Coop and split our duties up. My job is to process the oil and his job is to get it, filter it and deliver it.

It turns out I work with somebody who is well versed in biodiesel making. Jack Jones of Riverstones Biodiesel has been doing this for a long time and works just down the hall from me. So after picking his brain, I opted for an appleseed processor and a couple of wash tanks.

Here are some photos of the progress

First batch of biodiesel is through the processor. Keeping track here if you want to check the contributions and status of processing.