Hotel heated by vegetable oil in Alaska

I’ve heard of cars that run on vegetable oil, but a hotel? Big thumbs up to the Westmark Baranof Hotel in Juneau, Alaska, for figuring out a way to mix vegetable oil with fuel oil to heat the hotel.

It was the hotel’s chief engineer who came up with the process after hearing that a local incinerator would close and businesses would have to send their oil away for disposal.

The Westmark has been using the cooking oil for two years and uses about 10,000 gallons of oil a year. Hotel employees pick up unwanted cooking oil from local businesses every week. The process has reduced the Westmark’s fuel oil consumption by 9,000 gallons a year.

Deal: I found rooms at the Westmark Baranof Hotel in Juneau on SideStep for $119 a night, while the lowest rate for the same night on the hotel’s website was $159 a night.

Contact: Westmark Baranof Hotel in Juneau, (907) 586-2660

Related Links:

Travel: Destination Alaska
California hotels certified ‘green’ by eco-design experts
Hotels hop on the ‘green’ bandwagon
Putting the ‘eco’ in tourism

— Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel Deal Blogger

[Photo: Westmark Hotels]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 6:44 pm by Jen Leo and is filed under Alaska, Eco-Travel, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.