Rapidly becoming my favorite New Yorker pieces -- long writeups of niche industries (cf the tugboat story) that walk the line between investigative journalism and disbelieving, snobbish entertainment stories.
- The process isn’t tidy. The wastewater has to be cooked off, and the scraps of hash browns and wontons and buffalo wings filtered out—to say nothing of the old shoes, dirty diapers, and used hypodermic needles that can end up in a bin in a back alley. But used cooking oil, correctly processed, burns eighty per cent cleaner than fossil fuels, has a smaller carbon footprint than corn ethanol, and doesn’t compete with the food supply. Nathanael Greene, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me that it provides “probably the best of the biofuels out there.”
I'm guessing your past self still had the presence of mind to stop you from writing "The New Yorker Takes Us Inside This Little Known Criminal Enterprise - You Won't Believe What Happens Next!", but was too inebriated to stop you from hitting enter on a half finished title. ;-)
I thought it was rather clever. Sparked my curiosity.
That's what it's all about I guess. Finding a hidden niche and having the courage to see it through. I had no idea how valuable used grease is or how cutthroat the business to claim it. Great read. Thanks for the NYer archives link as well. Got plenty of reading for my nightshift.Nick, the company’s C.E.O., has worked in grease since his early teens. He says that sucking used oil from a container used to be a little humiliating. “You’d get the dirtiest looks from people,” he says. “Like, ‘That’s why you go to college—because otherwise you’ll end up like him.’ It really bothered me for a while.” He points out that his brother recently bought a custom Bentley, which cost three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, to add to his collection of vintage sports cars. Nick says, “People ask, Why would anyone risk going to jail for stealing something so petty? Because nobody knows.”
Chemical plant. We make the sunsets beautiful. I hate it. Wish I had some shots. Cheers!