The Basics: Fill your tank with vegetable oil

MSN online | April 30, 2005 | Jim Washburn

[grania]

Diesel engines can run on just about anything, including used cooking oil. An entire industry is emerging to provide brave 'biodiesel' pioneers with the ingredients for petroleum-free motoring.

One day last March, my musician friend Jonathan drove up in a Mercedes. This was odd, since Jonathan is so resolutely counterculture that he once tried recording an album in the woods, without electricity.

His car's exhaust smelled faintly of french fries, and therein lay the explanation: The new Jonathan Richman tour vehicle -- an '84 300D Turbo -- was running on vegetable oil-derived biodiesel fuel as he and his drummer crisscrossed the nation in it, a deep fryer on wheels.

I was intrigued: Biodiesel comes from renewable resources. It's made from soybeans, corn or other oil crops, saving America's farmers. Or it comes from recycled kitchen grease, saving America's sewers. It pollutes remarkably less than petroleum fuel, and could potentially make the U.S. energy self-sufficient, freed from bargaining with dictators and terror-sponsor states.

And did I mention it smells like french fries?

But I was also suspicious. If it works so well, why isn't everyone already using it? I've fallen prey to New Age wishful thinking before, and that pyramid never did sharpen my razor. Even after cruising the Pacific Coast Highway in Jonathan's car, something about it didn't seem real. If a car runs on vegetable oil, does that mean I can run my TV on sauerkraut? Don't let retirement sneak up on you. Create a perfect plan.

Endorsed by Rudolf Diesel himself It turns out biodiesel is not a new idea. When Rudolf Diesel introduced his signature engine at the 1900 Paris Exposition, he said two words as he started it: "Peanut oil." He'd designed his engine so farmers could grow their own fuel. Most diesel engines were indeed run on vegetable oil until the 1920s, when the petroleum industry promoted a gasoline byproduct as diesel fuel.

Environmental concerns, the Iraq war and rising gas prices have spurred a renewed interest in biodiesel, and people have discovered that a diesel automobile can run on it with little or no alteration. (Cars more than a decade old should have fuel lines checked, because the highly solvent fuel eats some rubber compounds. It cleans engines so effectively that fuel filters also bear watching.) It can be used interchangeably with standard diesel fuel, and it's had well over a million miles of road-testing.

I started seriously thinking about joining the biodiesel generation when a butterscotch Mercedes 240D turned up for sale around the corner for $3,500. Saving the environment is nice, but I really like butterscotch. Test-driving the car, however, I found that friends' concerns about the model's 67-horsepower engine proved true. The 240D has a reputation for running forever, but that's also apparently how long it takes to get anywhere in it.

The biggest hurdle: where to tank up Even if this wasn't the diesel steed for our experiment in vehicular unction, I was now set on getting one. My wife expressed doubts about the biodiesel lifestyle, though, when I suggested we could store the 55-gallon drum in the bushes near the garage.

[Bear_Slayer]

But of course. I think old cooking oil is a nuisance to dispose

BIG BUSINESS:

"Shall I give a way all this seemingly useless cooking oil or sell it to the petroleum industry that is now geared up for biodiesel?"

It's an easy answer; they'll sell it - and do the highest bidder.

[eno_]

I have no illusions of solving the crisis. But don't underestimate the value of insulating yourself from the bone-headed "solutions" the government might try in the form of new taxes.

For example, because I have my own well and septic, the MWRA can kiss my ass.

[Bear_Slayer]

You would be consuming petroleum to grow it.

And no petroleum is used in the exportation of petroleum?

[dennisw]

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[Huck]

I like the way you think. We should bail on oil as soon as we can. Way too many headaches.

[eno_]

I was thinking diesel tractor, which was Rudolf Diesel's first application of his technology. One would only run a tractor a few tens of hours to farm 2 acres and press the seeds. The numbers work.

[Bear_Slayer]

But don't underestimate the value of insulating yourself from the bone-headed "solutions" the government might try in the form of new taxes.

I never underestimate the value of insulating myself from government.

For example, because I have my own well and septic, the MWRA can kiss my ass.

I don't know who the MWRA is, but if they seek to regulate my well, tell them to kiss mine as well.

[RayChuang88]

You would have build millions of acres of cement algae ponds.

Actually not. I've read reports that by using saltwater ponds in desert regions, we can grow enough high-carbohydrate to fuel every vehicle in the USA! You might want to read this web page:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

It talks about how just 15,000 square miles of land could be used to create all that biodiesel fuel for American needs. That could mean the deserts of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt could be turned into gigantic algae ponds to produce enough biomass to refine into biodiesel fuel for every vehicle in Europe!

[dennisw]

Most seed oils used for cooking are extracted at high temperatures with solvents. You will leave oil behind if you press it cold with your PTO. Multiply your two acres into one thousand it still doesn't work out. Burn that OPEC oil directly instead of growing crops with it that are made into automobile fuels.

[I still care]

I saw Daryl Hannah years ago on O'Reilly talking about something like this. She said she filled up her car from a special place, and it smelled like french fries.

She said it cost slightly over $2 a gallon (this when gas was maybe $1.25). She said it was healthy for the environment, and ran in any diesel car. It seemed interesting to pursue.

[eno_]

Fertilizer, btw, is made by my neighbors' horses and chickens. I don't know how much home grown eggs cost to produce, but they taste 10 times better than store bought. Similarly, my biodiesel would let me give a hearty FU! to the gas tax man. That's worth doing.

[dennisw]

I'll read it. Just building and maintaining saltwater algae ponds in such deserts is a hugely expensive proposition

[tiki]

I think that in the past it has been less than cost effective. As the price of fuel rises that changes.

[AlGone2001]

One of the biggest secrets about vegetable oil is that it can be used to clean oil based paint from a paint brush in the event that the painter doesn't have mineral spirits.

[RayChuang88]

Just building and maintaining saltwater algae ponds in such deserts is a hugely expensive proposition.

However, you could refine a small fraction of that algae-based biomass into biodiesel and use to power generators to operate the ponds.

[rabidralph]

So now our highways and other vehicles will soon acquire a thin veneer of vegetable grease, kind of like our kitchen appliances after a few days of frying things on the stove?

[RightWhale]

It pollutes remarkably less than petroleum fuel

Truth or hype?

[billhilly]

McDonalds has only started making money. Fill me and it up.

[_Jim]

A friend of mine runs this stuff in his Dodge Cummins diesel; after *filtering* through coffee filters first of course!

[tkathy]

This sounds like a workable solution to me.