Darryl,
Thanks for articles such as these. It's nice to hear
about people who do things. They talk, they listen, but
ultimately they act. Whether it's putting something to
work that they would otherwise discard, or
about someone who scratches in the dirt to grow food
they will eat, without first poisoning it.
I have a problem with the term "payback period".
We don't ask about "payback period" when we go on
vacation, or buy a car with all the options. Does
the gardener really calculate the payback period for
the time and cost of planting and tending the garden?
Why would anyone plant flower beds?
My experience is that "payback period" is often used an
excuse for inaction. Blessings to those who read,
listen and learn, calculate feasibility and then act with
the understanding that sustainability is the goal and joy
is part of the payoff.
Actually another problem:
Article states that:
-cost will be about $50,000
-savings will be about $10,000/year ($900/mo)
-payback will be within 2 years
Are there tax incentives or is this a simple
miscalculation as it would seem that payback would be
about 5 years at their savings.
(Nothing wrong with a 5 year payback as a diesel
generator will live long past that)
Thanks again,
Tom
http://www.leaderpost.com/life/Restaurateur+energized+veggie/9935141/story.html
Regina restaurateur energized by old veggie oil
By Natascia Lypny, The Leader-Post June 13, 2014
A Regina restaurateur thinks the leftover grease from
french fries, fish
and chips, and other greasy goodies could be the
solution
to
Saskatchewan's power grid strain.
Adam Sperling, owner of La Bodega and Slow Pub,
envisions
a Regina
powered by restaurants' waste vegetable oil.
"Right now all that is, is a drain on power," he said of
the city's
expanding restaurant scene. "It's draining our grid. We
can turn that
into a power resource."
The Environment Advisory Committee member plans to bring
forward a
motion that the city conduct a feasibility study
involving
a pilot
project of vegetable oil electricity generation at three
locations of
varying size. Thursday's committee meeting was
cancelled,
but Sperling
plans to bring the motion up the next time the committee
sits.
It's an idea the restaurateur has been picking away at
for
a decade.
According to his research, a generator would cost
$50,000
installed. In
a restaurant with one deep fryer, such as La Bodega, the
generator would
pay for itself within two years, then practically nix
the
restaurant's
power bill, said Sperling.
His vision for the generator is ambitious. Vegawatt, a
similar machine
developed by a Massachusetts company, advertises itself
as
providing
10-25 per cent of a restaurant's power and cutting its
monthly power
bill by $890. No examples of such a product exist in
Canada.
Currently, waste vegetable oil is picked up from
restaurants, then
reused for cosmetics, biodiesel and on roads to control
dust.
Sperling hopes the pilot leads to the eventual
installation of
generators at all Regina restaurants and food vendors
with
two or more
deep fryers.
"This is an opportunity for Regina and for SaskPower to
be
leaders and
innovators in recycling and being sustainable, and
relieving the power
grid of so much stress," he said.
SaskPower's grid is currently strained under the
pressures
of increased
demand due to a growing population and the age of the
infrastructure.
Its sections average 30 to 50 years old, said spokesman
Tyler Hopson.
"At the current time, expanding our generation fleet is
something
SaskPower is interested in doing, something we have to
do
as the
province grows in terms of population and demand for
power
increases,"
he said, adding the situation's not critical.
Sperling's idea is far from fruition. He hasn't
developed
the machine,
nor discussed it with SaskPower. The corporation,
though,
is open to
innovation, said Hopson. While he couldn't comment on
this
particular
idea, Hopson said SaskPower accepts unsolicited
proposals.
It also has a
Small Power Producers Program by which people can
generate
electricity
either to offset their own bill or to sell to SaskPower.
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