VEGGIE OIL “ENERGY PATRIOTS” LEAD THE WAY

While checking the statistics for daily readership of the Review, the stats for March 12th were astonishing. We received over 100 hits, the majority of them American. And the majority of those were for yesterday’s report about the Wetzels of Illinois and their car run on used vegetable oil. The only time we had this many was for the controversial interview with John Sharpe, head of IHS Press.

On the heels of yesterday’s article, this March 12th report comes in from Jon Hurdle of Reuters News Service for Yahoo News. The report was originally noted on the weblog of the left-wing environmentalist website Ecotoolbox.com.

There is a Philadelphia-based company called Fry-O-Diesel that turns brown grease from restaurant sink traps into usable, clean-burning biodiesel fuel. The company and a competitor in Long Island, NY - North American BioFuels - are the only American-based companies doing this work.

It is true that biodiesel made from used vegetable oil will not take a major chunk out of current fuel usage, it is nonetheless making a contribution to cutting American dependence on foreign oil. It further aids the decentralization of energy production out of the hands of the few, whether of Big Government or Big Business. Such decentralization fits in very well with Distributist Thought.

There is also a company in western Massachusetts - Greasecar - that makes conversion kits for diesel cars to run on vegetable oil. According to Hurdle’s report, sales of the kits have double every year for the last few years.

This is also good news, for it is bringing back - in a small way - small-scale manufacturing to the Bay State. That is another step in the right direction, that is towards a Distributist economy and society.

Congratulations to all three companies. Our Lord willing, may others follow in your wake with equal success. And if you decide to contact these comapnies, please let them know you heard about them from The Distributist Review. And thank you.