As temperatures and oil prices rise around the world, two recent university graduates have decided to abandon fossil fuels in favor of a cleaner-burning, plant-matter based alternative: biodiesel.

Adam Schwartz and Andrea Calderon said they hope to get the Washington area on the vegetable-oil-based fuel as well by starting the area’s first biodiesel cooperative, The Green Guild. For starters, the eco-conscious duo will bulk purchase biodiesel and distribute it to members of the co-op before gathering waste vegetable oil from local businesses and producing their own supply.

Biodiesel is a fuel that contains no petroleum. It is biodegradable, nontoxic and can be used in regular diesel engines with little or no modification. The fuel can be made from waste vegetable oil through a chemical process where glycerin is separated from the vegetable oil, leaving methyl esters, or biodiesel, behind. The fuel pumps less carbon dioxide into the air than petroleum-based diesel fuels and gasoline, and it comes from renewable resources.

The Diamondback spoke with one of the co-founders of The Green Guild Co-op to find out more about their project:

The Diamondback: Why start a biodiesel co-op, especially here?

Adam Schwartz: I studied environmental science and policy at the university. It was something that I continually kept learning about from researching and doing projects about alternative fuel. Biodiesel just appealed to me because it was very concrete and it was very do-it-yourself. With a couple of other folks, we decided it’s something we could do. There is just kind of a vacuum for biodiesel in this area. There’s really no opportunities for getting biodiesel in the area.

DBK: What do you think about when you drive past a gas station, especially when you see the prices?

Schwartz: Everyone is feeling the crunch. The price is coming up, and it’s only going to keep going up. It presents us with a big challenge and a big opportunity. I think that, on the one hand, those increasing prices are going to push people toward alternatives, so that’s the good part. But the bad part really is that people are gonna feel that crunch along with other economic issues.

DBK: What kinds of people do you think this co-op will attract?

Schwartz: People that are environmentally and socially aware of the climate and other issues. I guess folks who are interested in biodiesel come from different areas. Some of them are really against the war and see oil as something that is causing that, and others [are] very much about that localism and do-it-yourself and energy independence. Others are very much more coming from the environmental angle and are concerned about the climate. It’s kind of a medium that brings together different people and different perspectives.

DBK: How do restaurants typically react when you try and get their waste vegetable oil?

Schwartz: Most restaurants pay someone else to take away their vegetable oil. We offer to take it for free. In most cases, that’s enough of an incentive. People are pretty open to it. There is a culture of home brewing biodiesel, just individuals going to restaurants and picking them up. In some ways, that’s created barriers for us. We’ve been working on developing contracts with restaurants and getting pretty good response, particularly from locally and independently owned as opposed to chain restaurants.

DBK: How much will your biodiesel end up costing relative to petrol-based fuel?

Schwartz: There’s a co-op in Baltimore that’s selling for $3 and ninety-something cents. It fluctuates around $4, but it has fluctuated consistently around that area for the past two years. Our goal is between $3.50 and $4.50 per gallon, and that would be based on whether it’s the summer and winter and what other costs we have. But if you look at the cost of petroleum diesel, right now it’s at around $3.99, just a months ago it was about $3.50, and a couple months before that is was around $3.30, so it’s increasing, and it’s only going to get more expensive. So you can save money on biodiesel. It’s not always the case that you have to pay extra to be environmentally friendly.

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