We already fuel and lubricate our cars with animal byproducts, it just takes millions of years for the process to happen. Connecticut-based Green Earth Technologies has been marketing its G-Oil product for small engines at retailers like Home Depot, and the company is waiting on approval from the American Petroleum Institute new automotive applications. G-Oil is biodegradable (no word about the nasties that used oil holds in suspension, though) and made from animal fat that would typically be discarded by slaughterhouses. It's ironic that animal-derived oil is an alternative to petroleum, which shifted the world away from whale oil over a century ago.

Mobil 1 and other synthetic oils have been around for decades, and do offer an alternative to straight dino juice, but Green Earth's technology guru Mat Zuckerman touts G-Oil as "better than anything out there." As the whaling industry discovered back in the day, there's not enough animal byproduct out there to satisfy the demand for oil or supplant petroleum's primacy, but every little bit helps. GET's Oklahoma facility is capable of producing 5 million bottles per month, and we wonder if it makes your engine's innards smell like meatloaf.

[Source: Detroit News via TCC]