Just a year ago, most restaurants paid a company to come and take their used fryer grease away. A year later, gas prices are still on the rise and those same restaurants are now selling their used grease, instead of paying to get rid of it. They’re even installing security systems to stop thieves from stealing their used grease.

It’s called “Yellow grease”, and most people thought of it only as trash only a couple of years ago. Today, it’s being traded as a hot commodity on the open market for $2.50 a gallon, nearly $1.50 less than a gallon of gasoline. That sounds good, but in 2000 the price was only $.50 per gallon. With a conversion kit, yellow grease can be mixed with gasoline as an additive for your fuel. Yellow grease can also burn on its own, much like a low grade of diesel gasoline.

Because this grease has such great ability to fuel automobiles, it’s no surprise thievery is on the rise. A man in California was caught stealing grease from Burger King. When he was pulled over, they found 2,500 gallons of grease in his truck! That’s almost $6,000 worth of fuel for your car. And $6,000 restaurants can earn back with no extra work at all.

Sure, Canada might be American’s hat. But a new plan in Norway could turn Norway into the battery of Europe. The thinking is that Norway is lucky to have such big energy resources, and there is a large potential for wind power in Norway. So much in fact, that Europe plans to use 20% of it’s energy from the wind farm in Norway by 2020.

The energy generated by Norway would be equivalent to about eight nuclear power plants. Norway pumps about 2.2 million barrels of oil per day. The offshore wind parks, which would stop on calm days, could be supplemented by hydro reservoirs which can be turned on and off to turn them into a battery storing power for the entire European Union.

The StatoilHydro company said it will invest $80 million to build the world’s first full-scale floating wind turbine to start up in 2009.

This project could cost around $40 billion dollars. It sounds like a ton of money, and it is, but $40 billion dollars is what it takes to power Europe for half a year. Investing half a year’s worth of energy money into this project will pay off within the first it’s live.

There’s some new research out today that shows upgrading to a new computer might be more harmful to the environment than simply upgrading your old computer. This is because it takes more energy to create a new computer than that same computer will consume in 10 years. Here are some things you can do to fix up your current computer instead of buying a new one.

If you’ve been using the same computer for a few years, you probably notice it running slower than when you first got it. This doesn’t mean it’s time to get a new computer! Usually the slow-down is because of all the crap you’ve downloaded throughout the life of your computer. When you get too much crap on your computer, it will start slowing down. There are a few things you can do in this case, to make your computer run faster.

RAM. It’s like the temporary memory in your computer. If you don’t have a lot of RAM, you can’t do very much with your computer’s small temporary memory. The more RAM you have the more you can do without your computer slowing down. It’s also possible your hard drive is full. If there’s no room to put new files on your computer, it will try to store your data in temporary memory which will result in extreme slow down.

If you have a laptop, it might be worth buying a new battery for it. Laptop batteries do wear-out over time, so the 5-hour charge you originally had might only be a 1-hour charge today. Lots of people consider this a good time to get a new computer. Save your money and the environment, and just buy a new battery instead.

Over 220 million tons of e-Waste are generated annually in the USA. e-Waste is the waste generated from computers and other electronic devices. With the world population growing exponentially daily, little things like this will end up helping our environment in the long run.

Molson Coors Brewing Company announced that they will be donating 400 cars to the Democratic National Convention that run on beer ethanol. They are using their “waste beer” to fuel these cars, instead of oil. The waste beer is the beer that is deemed “below brewery standards” and is recycled into alcohol automotive fuel. The fleet will be for the use of U.S. House and Senate Leadership, DNC officials and state party chairs, delegates, staff, and members of the media.

Best of all, nobody will be going hungry from the ethanol being used. That’s because Coors isn’t using any corn-based ethanol, they’re using beer-based ethanol. And since that beer is below standards anyway, it would just go to waste. Considering they’ve been doing this for 12 years, I’m a little surprised more people don’t know about it. But with global warming becoming an issue, big companies are looking to take small steps to become more environmentally friendly. Giving cars to the DNC is of course “free” advertising for Coors, but it should also give them a lot of eco-credit among the greener of us.

Coors is the first major U.S. brewer to convert its waste beer into ethanol. Since 1996 Coors has been recycling waste beer, which the company says is beer lost during packaging or deemed below quality standards, and converting it to alcohol automotive fuel. The company says production of ethanol from waste beer also helps it eliminate about 70 tons of harmful volatile organic compounds from its air emissions annually.

Did you know during the 1970s, the United States Congress adopted a nationwide 55 mile-per-hour speed limit law. They even withheld highway funding from any state that failed to comply with the federal law. That law was repealed over 12 years ago, but with the rising cost of fuel and global warming concerns, some people are asking Congress to re-adopt the law of the 1970s.

One of those groups is Drive 55 who is helping lobby Congress to re-pass this law. They also encourage people to donate, get bumper stickers and encourage other people to drive 55 miles per hours. “Sheer physics tell you lower speeds equal better fuel economy, fewer injuries and lower emissions” said Justin McNaull, director of state relations for AAA.

But The American Heritage Foundation claims 12 years of 55 mile per hour speed limits cut fuel consumption by just 1 percent. After Congress repealed the National Maximum Speed Law and 33 states raised their speed limits, the Cato Institute said traffic deaths dropped to a record low. So there might be more at stake than just saving a little gas.

I personally don’t believe Congress should pass this law again. The states have spend plenty of time and money determining the proper speed limits for every road in their states. If drivers can drive faster than 55 miles per hour while not endangering other people, they should be allowed to.

The drawbacks aren’t measured just in terms of minutes lost. The SF Times reports there’s the feeling of inadequacy that comes from being flipped off by a little boy in another car. From being tailgated by little old ladies and pickup trucks. From being passed by 830 vehicles, including an AC Transit bus, on a drive from the Bay Area to deep into the San Joaquin Valley.

In a non-commercial project from Uniblue Research Labs, a computer program called LocalCooling can help cut into the problem of global warming. LocalCooling is a free power-management program you can download here, and it allows you to configure and optimize your computer’s energy management settings.

More than 30 billion kilowatt-hours of energy are wasted because many people just forget to shut down their computers when they aren’t using them. If we could just improve the efficiency of how we use our computers, the savings in energy costs would be over $3 billion dollars. The CO2 emissions from just 15 computers are equivalent, in energy terms, to the gas consumption of one car.

Obviously this isn’t going to solve the global warming problem, but small steps might just be the best way to cut into this problem and ultimately eliminate it. Computers are always going to be a part of our world, so the best thing we can do is make them as green as possible.

Change a light bulb. Replace at least 1 light bulb in your house (preferable the one that is used most often) with an energy star light bulb which uses about 75% less energy than standard light bulbs. With how much energy they save it almost makes you want to replace every bulb in your house. Find a store near you that carry these bulbs.

Recycle. Recycling is a big step towards helping fight global warming. Only about 30% of Americans recycle, and with each family who doesn’t recycle wasting about 2500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, this percentage has to change. Even if you don’t have a recycling program at home, work or school then start one! Remember it’s all up to you.

Plant a tree. If you have the means to plant a tree, start digging. During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They are an integral part of the natural atmospheric exchange cycle here on Earth, but there are too few of them to fully counter the increases in carbon dioxide caused by automobile traffic, manufacturing and other human activities. A single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

Join a carpool. Instead of driving alone in your car, join a carpool, take mass transit, walk, or ride a bike — anything that reduces the amount of gasoline you burn.

Sell your old car. A car that gets 20 miles per gallon will emit about 50 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. A car getting 40 mpg will emit half that much. When buying your next car, pick the least-polluting, most efficient vehicle that meets your needs. Maybe it’s an innovative hybrid that combines a gasoline engine with electric motors (and never needs to be plugged in).

Cut the AC, get a fan. Sure your AC keeps your frost cold, but it also uses a lot of energy. If you replace your AC with a fan (and they do sell strong fans) you will cut your energy bill and CO2 emissions by at least 500 pounds a year.

Buy Food from local growers. It usually doesn’t cross your mind, but the food you buy at the grocery store usually travels thousands of miles to get there, which is a lot of fossil fuel burned. Supporting your local growers and helping the planet, a win win.

Unplug your TV when it’s off. Most electronics (even your cell phone charger) still use energy when everything is off or disconnected from it, so just because you turn your TV off, it’s still eating away at the planet, and your wallet. Just move your power strip to a reachable positions and switch that off to save that extra energy.

Leave the thermostat alone. During the winter it can get cold, but try to stay away from the thermostat, instead wrap up in a blanket and get a nice sweater, you’ll stay warm and it’s free.

Air dry your clothes. When it’s nice out setup a clothes line and dry your clothes that way. Dryers use a lot of energy, plus your clothes will have that fresh air smell.