Of course with grease!

It appears as if all those burger joints that have popped up around the city are going to pay big dividends — Lydia DePillis reports that Wendell Jenkins, the president of a firm called D.C. Biofuels, has plans to open a biodiesel plant somewhere in the city next year. The plant will literally take the leftover grease from your burgers and fries and convert it into fuel for all sorts of things, including cars and homes.

All Simpsons jokes aside, DePillis explains why this is an important development:

Having a biodiesel plant in the city is actually kind of a big deal, given that the nearest facility is about 150 miles away, and trucking the stuff in becomes an expensive proposition (not to mention self-defeating, from an environmental point of view). The fuel tends to be a little more expensive than regular gasoline, but with gas prices as high as they are, the premium needn’t be prohibitive.

“Our model is built on using economies of scale of the supply chain,” Jenkins says. “Most of your waste is right here, and most of your users are here.”

Let the environmentally-conscious artery clogging begin!