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GREENSBORO - After the fish, fries and hush puppies have been fried, what's a restaurant chain to do with vats of leftover oil?

For Libby Hill, a Greensboro-based seafood restaurant, the answer is - fill up the gas tank.

Libby Hill has entered a partnership with Patriot Biodiesel to refine the waste oil from its 11 area restaurants into B-100 biodiesel.

"It's taking a product that was basically a wasted product and recycling," said Libby Hill President Justin Conrad.

Conrad estimates that Libby Hill restaurants go through 800,000 to 1 million pounds of vegetable oil a year. Roughly 10 percent of the oil remains after cooking.

The process to convert the waste oil into fuel is "a very basic and very old" one, said Gabe Neeriemer, who owns the Greensboro-based refinery.

He'll take the oil and heat it to 150 degrees, then mix in methanol and potassium or sodium. The potassium breaks down the triglyceride molecules and the methanol attaches to what is left, making a methelester, which is biodiesel.

"Any diesel engine can run it," Neeriemer said, though engines more than a dozen years old may need their older components upgraded.

The exchange with Patriot Biodiesel won't be enough to completely fuel Libby Hill's fleet of five diesel-powered trucks, but it will provide about a third of the needed fuel, Conrad said.

With a gallon of diesel fuel retailing from $4.60 to $4.90, the savings are expected to run into the thousands of dollars. And with biodiesel's detergent-like qualities, it'll help the trucks get better fuel efficiency, Conrad said.

"It'll clean the engine and create better lubricity in the engine."

In the exchange, Libby Hill provides the cooking oil and Patriot refines it. Patriot gives the restaurant a portion of the fuel and is able to sell the rest, Neeriemer said, helping him toward his goal of undercutting the cost of regular diesel by 15 to 20 cents per gallon.

In addition to finding an environmentally friendly source of domestic oil, refining used restaurant cooking oil for fuel is a way for owners to cut out the middleman and some of their overhead costs, Neeriemer said.

"It will empower restaurant owners to maybe cut costs to customers by cutting fuel costs and generating a new source of income by selling their oil," he said.

Contact Lanita Withers at 373-7071 or lanita. withers@news-record.com