Small Businesses: Dog River Alternative Fuels - Despite temporary low energy costs, it is clear that energy independence becomes an ever more important state and national goal as oil supplies continue to be exhausted and global tensions involving the Middle East increase. The search for reliable, renewable energy resources has already led Vermonters to explore the potential of hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, and photovoltaic energy – and now, the diversity of our home-grown energy base is expanded with the introduction of biodesel! John Hurley manages 1200 acres of Green Certified Forest land on the sensitive watershed of Chase Mountain in Berlin. His concern for global climate change and for the impact his own diesel powered equipment was having on both water and air quality led him to conceive of and to found Dog River Alternative Fuels. The goal of this new energy company is to provide Vermonters with a premium biodiesel fuel made from post-consumer -- that’s used -- vegetable oil, collected largely from local restaurants. A market survey conducted by the fledgling company served to identify ample quantities of waste vegetable oil. Vermont restaurants annually discard approximately 150,000 gallons of used cooking oil. Some of this is shipped out of state to rendering plants where processing makes it usable as animal feed additives, for soap making, and as additives for cosmetic and skin care products and much of the rest of it ends up in landfills. Since late last year, Dog River has collected a portion of this waste cooking oil and converted it to a fuel. Biodiesel can be used in factory diesel vehicles with little or no modification. Biodiesel fuel can also be mixed with heating oil and #2 diesel to be used in space heating. Every gallon of biodiesel fuel used in Vermont displaces an equal amount of petroleum diesel fuel. Biodiesel does not contribute to global climate change, burns with far fewer harmful air emissions, and replaces the sooty, acrid small and black smoke of petroleum diesel with the sweet aroma of french fries. Ironically, biodiesel, as a nontoxic surfactant, has been used to clean up oil spills. Dog River already supplies UVM with biodiesel to fuel its campus transit bus. They’ve created a Website to promote and market the biodiesel fuel they make and their educational video explaining how others can make fuel from waste vegetable oil has sold internationally. This being the case, it’s clear that it won’t be very long before skiers will be whisked to the top of a Vermont mountain on a chairlift powered by the oil once used to make their french fries.