How To Make Biodiesel

While ConocoPhillips and US meat giant Tyson Foods work out the economics of producing animal fat-based biodiesel, they may want to factor in a possible backlash by the US’ millions of vegetarian drivers. Not everyone wants to live by ExxonMobil’s motto to “put a tiger in your tank.” Activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has received “dozens of emails and phone calls from concerned people” this week about the ConocoPhillips plan, said Matt Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA. “We’re going to keep an eye on it.” Vegans do not eat or use any animal products. ConocoPhillips and Tyson announced April 16 they intend to make a “renewable diesel” feeding animal fat through a hydrogenation process at ConocoPhilips’ Borger refinery in Texas starting in the fourth quarter. The aim is to produce as much as 175 million gallons/year of renewable diesel by 2009. “With so many people becoming vegetarian and vegan these days it does seem unwise for Tyson and ConocoPhillips to produce fuel from animals,” said PETA’s Prescott. “Our membership would not be thrilled about [animal fat-based fuel], especially the vegans,” said Jeanne Yacoubou, research director of the Vegetarian Resource Group. The group has 20,000-30,000 members, she said, both vegetarian and vegan. Some 2-3% of the US population is vegetarian, said Yacoubou, translating that to 6 million to 9 million people, based on the latest US Census data showing 300 million people in the US. “Please note that this 2-3% is a low figure, and represents those who say that they NEVER eat meat, fish or fowl,” she said in an email response. “There are probably closer to 6-9% of people who may say they are vegetarian, which is equivalent to 18-27 million people. They may be interested in the animal fats as biofuel issue for various reasons, whether for animal rights, environmental, ethical or health reasons.” Thermal depolymerization production technology will process animal fats with hydrocarbon feedstock to produce diesel at the ConocoPhillips plant. It takes one barrel of animal fat to make one 42-gallon barrel of biodiesel, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Tyson officials. “And each barrel requires, on average, two steers, or 16 hogs or 1,300 chickens,” they said. Tyson said the animal fat that will be used to make its biodiesel is currently put into pet foods, cosmetics and soap, so it will not add to the debate over food versus fuel. Renewable diesel, or biodiesel, “will contribute to America’s energy security and help to address climate change concerns,” ConocoPhillips and Tyson said in a joint statement April 16. The plan must be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. PETA’s Prescott said it was “ironic” Tyson Foods would seek to “mask” non-climate friendly moves with what it billed as a climate friendly fuel deal. He cited a UN-backed report last year, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” that said the livestock sector is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, measured in CO2 equivalent. “This is a higher share than transport,” said the report. Meanwhile, biodiesel producers continue to rail against big oil’s production of biodiesel at refineries, claiming it isn’t fair they will receive the same $1/gallon tax credit set up to help the much smaller scale biodiesel industry. The biodiesel industry has made their argument a question of semantics, saying renewable diesel is not the same as biodiesel. Renewable diesel “does not offer many of the benefits that biodiesel does, such as adding to refining capacity, improving certain performance characteristics, reducing emissions like particulate matter when burned in a diesel engine, and adding jobs to the economy,” officials from the National Biodiesel Board told a congressional hearing April 18. Despite those comments, it seems some biodiesel producers are not totally against following in ConocoPhillips’ footsteps, perhaps due to an expected drop in soybean supply as farmers plant more corn for ethanol. Purdue, a competitor to Tyson in poultry processing, has received “inquiries” from biodiesel producers about using animal fat to make diesel, said Purdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung. She said the company has provided samples to interested parties but contracts have not yet been signed.

3 Responses to “Animal activists eye ConocoPhillips biodiesel plan”

• Elizabeth 18February2009

  Websites exposing the animal rights agenda:
  http://www.consumerfreedom.com/

  http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith100202.asp http://www.animalrights.net/articles/2001/000229.html
  http://www.naiaonline.org
  http://www.naiatrust.org
  http://www.pet-law.com
  http://www.saova.org
  http://www.felinerescue.net/Animal_rights.htm
  http://www.ncraoa.com
  http://www.dfow.org/
  http://www.animalscam.com
  http://www.petakillsanimals.com

• Elizabeth 18February2009

  PETA???? Consider the “source”

  7 Things You Didn’t Know About PETA
  (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

  1) According to government documents, PETA employees have killed more than 19,200 dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens since 1998. This behavior continues despite PETA’s moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by farmers, scientists, restaurant owners, circuses, hunters, fishermen, zookeepers, and countless other Americans. PETA puts to death over 90 percent of the animals it accepts from members of the public who expect the group to make a reasonable attempt to find them adoptive homes. PETA holds absolutely no open-adoption shelter hours at its Norfolk, VA headquarters, choosing instead to spend part of its $32 million annual income on a contract with a crematory service to periodically empty hundreds of animal bodies from its large walk-in freezer.

  2 ) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet ownership. In a 2003 profile of Newkirk in The New Yorker, author Michael Specter wrote that Newkirk has had at least one seeing-eye dog taken away from its blind owner. PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at curing AIDS and cancer.

  3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to Rodney Coronado, an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) serial arsonist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing memorandum, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich has also told an animal rights convention that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation,” adding, “Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.”

  4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, even waiting outside their schools to intercept them without notifying their parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 1.2 million minor children, including 30,000 kids between the ages of 6 and 12, all contacted by e-mail without parental supervision. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”

  5) PETA’s president has said that “even if animal research resulted in acure for AIDS, we would be against it.” And PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, solely because they support animal-based research aimed at curing life-threatening diseases and birth defects. And PETA helped to start and manage a quasi-medical front group, the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, to attack medical research head-on.

  6) PETA has compared Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust to farm animals and Jesus Christ to pigs. PETA’s religious campaigns include a website that claims—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn’t be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compared the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide to farm animals.

  7) PETA frequently looks the other way when its celebrity spokespersons don’t practice what it preaches. As gossip bloggers and Hollywood journalists have noted, Pamela Anderson’s Dodge Viper (auctioned to benefit PETA) had a “luxurious leather interior”; Jenna Jameson was photographed fishing, slurping oysters, and wearing a leather jacket just weeks after launching an anti-leather campaign for PETA; Morrissey got an official “okay” from PETA after eating at a steakhouse; Dita von Teese has written about her love of furs and foie gras; Steve-O built a career out of abusing small animals on film; the officially “anti-fur” Eva Mendes often wears fur anyway; and Charlize Theron’s celebrated October 2007 Vogue cover shoot featured several suede garments. In 2008, “Baby Phat” designer Kimora Lee Simmons became a PETA spokesmodel despite working with fur and leather, after making a $20,000 donation to the animal rights group.

  Want evidence? Visit
  http://www.AnimalScam.com • http://www.ActivistCash.com • http://www.PetaKillsAnimals.com

• CCorsair 24February2009

  ConAgra Turkeys into oil Google it and see that we can get more fuel from it than just plaint base bio fuels ..Peta and HSUS just want all domestic animals got along with all people so bad air and bad a everything is good for them .. in there over all plans PeTa kill animals the support ALF and group that want all research that could save children from cancer so please what these two companies are doing is good in my eyes

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