Vegans and animal rights activist may have to deal with a new form of animal exploitation: fuel.

There is a new company called Dynamic Fuels that will make fuel from “non-food grade animal fats such as beef tallow, pork lard, chicken fat and greases.” Animal rights isn’t the only problem here. Matthew McDermott over at Treehugger brings up a great point: “If it uses beef fat could it be used in good conscience by Hindus? Pork fat: Muslims or Jews?”

I’m a huge fan of new clean energy innovations that will inevitably save us from a very bleek future, but there’s no way this is clean. All animal rights aside for a moment, this “non-food” animal sources will still be coming from factory farming. The UN, along with other organizations, has repeatedly told us that factory farms are a major contributor to global warming. Granted, environmental consciousness isn’t at the heart of Tyson, who is a partner in this project. Why are they doing this? Tyson’s Jeff Webster says “The demand is partially driven by fuel prices, but the larger factors are energy independence and national security concerns about relying on foreign imports.” It won’t be long before they’re trying to tout the enviroment postivities that are completely absent.