Biodiesel is what, essentially, but a refined form of some type of heavier vegetable oil, and we’ve heard of biodiesel refined from used French Fry oil and peanut oil.
On the other hand, I’ll bet you haven’t heard of biodiesel refined from bacon-drippings, until now, that is. Ahh, bacon, there’s nothing quite like it for us carnivores and omnivores out there, and we’ve found ways to put it in breakfast (eggs ‘n bacon), sandwiches (BLT Club, anyone?), dinners (chicken saltimbocca), and even salads. I think there’s even a bacon-flavored dessert, but I’m not sure that I’m willing to go that far. Someone needs to do some field research on this and get back to me. Anyway, what about the combustible qualities of bacon, since it is essentially fats and oils, but what does that have to do with motorcycles?
Just like other fats and oils can be refined into biodiesel, bacon and hog lovers, that is, whose who love to eat them and ride them, will love this new motorcycle, a rare three-cylinder diesel motorcycle from the Netherlands. It isn’t just any diesel-powered motorcycle, however, but specially modified to look like a bacon bike, that is, it’s been stripped down and rebuilt by Hormel Foods Corporation, maker of Black Label Bacon. It even has a pig-skin saddle!
After cooking bacon, the drippings are typically used for cooking other things, or simply thrown away. Instead of doing this, Bio-Blend Fuels, in Wisconsin, takes those droppings and refines them into biodiesel. Currently, Bio-Blend’s process can turn 275 gallons of bacon drippings into 250 gallons of pure biodiesel. Because the bacon bike runs on B100 (100% biodiesel) refined from bacon drippings, it is nearly carbon-neutral, a model for future transportation fuel ideas that don’t particularly have to rely on potatoes, switchgrass, corn, algae, or other biofuel feedstocks. Also, the bacon bike’s exhaust smells like, well, bacon, so there’s that.
Image © Hormel Foods
