A side narrative on waste oil and the EPA: While having my car serviced this morning, I asked the manager what he did with waste oil (this is primarily a repair shop; lube & oil is a sideline). He said he used to have it picked up by a Safety-Kleen subsidiary at no cost (years ago he was paid 5 cents per gallon), but they instituted a $50 per month pick up charge, which he thought outrageous for his 150 or so gallons per month. So he signed on with another collector who would still pick it up for free and who turns it into road oil/asphalt. But the EPA requires that he sign a statement that he remains legally responsible for the eventual environmentally correct disposal of the oil--ten years from now, should somebody scrape up a highway he "contributed to" and then dump the stuff illegally, he could be charged with part of the cleanup and disposal cost. He would also get hit for his share should the waste oil collector be in an accident, and the oil leak into a roadside ditch. So he has an open-ended liability, in terms of both time and cost. I asked if he would be interested in a collector who could make the waste oil go "poof" and turn it into clean diesel fuel, so that the liability would end in short order, since there wouldn't be any more waste oil or a derivative product with the same disposal problems. He brightened up immediately and wanted to know where he could contact such a collector. "Coming soon to your neighborhood," I said, and launched into a discussion of the GRNO process. When we parted, I think he was headed off to call his stockbroker. In any case, he was very enthusiastic at the idea of getting rid of the liability, and if a collector happened to pay him a few cents per gallon to insure that it was "clean" waste oil, he would ecstatically comply.
He also told me that the principal way people got rid of the liability now was through the major motor oil producers--if you sign a long-term, exclusive agreement with a Penzoil, Quaker State, etc., to use their product, they assume the disposal liability once it has been collected from the shop. But he wasn't sure he wanted to be tied into a fixed contract with a single supplier like that. I expect the big oil companies don't exactly like to collect all that liability, either, but that's a clear device to insure doing significant business now. Come the deluge, they can always declare bankruptcy, I suppose--plenty of other companies have retreated to that refuge.
Establishing a clear end point to environmental liability is an area where the EPA could really help GRNO and the subsidiary handlers of waste oil--I gather that the EPA certification procedure previously announced is going forward with the government's usual idea of what constitutes "fast"-tracking (but the delays in getting the processor into an exclusively operational state [M&K have been in Charleston most of this week, doing more tests] obviously haven't helped).
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PS--previous posts have asked about the power company with the big waste oil problem who sent their own tanker with a test load. I'm given to understand that it would presumably be the power company's place to discuss any results, at least prior to the formalization of any actual purchase agreement. I was told that negotiations are continuing to progress, whatever that means, and that, should an agreement be reached, it will be announced in a press release. Soon, I hope, since this company should have no problems including a deposit check with their order [my opinion]. |
