Tyson will create fuel from animal fat?

Here are your sexiest vegetarians according to the PETA poll.

I really don't know what to make of Tyson's announcement that they're going to work with a synthetic fuel company named Syntroleum to make synthetic fuel from animal fat.

I guess the reason my spider sense starts tingling here is a) because it's Tyson and b) because it's fuel.


I suppose there might be some (relatively) innocent part of their (generally horrendous) production process where they get ample animal fat that they can easily sell off to Syntroleum, but my initial reaction is that they're just going to start squishing cows and pigs in giant orange juicers to get the fat.

And yikes! If this new company actually takes off, and Tyson (of all companies!!!) becomes a major energy supplier? Becomes the Saudi Arabia of the second half of the 21st century??

That makes me worried.

In a statement, the companies said they formed a joint venture, Dynamic Fuels LLC, to construct and operate more such facilities. Tyson will supply feedstock, mainly derived from animal fats, greases, and vegetable oils, to the plants.

Syntroleum, which converts natural gas to synthetic liquid fuels, said it expects the first facility to be located in south central United Sates.

The company expects the plant to produce about 78 million gallons per year of renewable synthetic fuel from 74 million gallons per year of feedstock beginning in 2010. Construction of the facility is expected to start in 2008.