Cheezy or Greasy: A Quest to Use Vegetable Oil For Fuel

Merzola Video Shoot, Take 27...And...Action!

2009-05-05T15:32:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I told you about a video shoot we did in conjunction with the Mother Nature Network. They did their best to make us look cool, but somehow, when you see yourself on video, there is nothing to prepare you for how much of a loser you really are. Two questions: 1) Is my nose really that big? and 2) What happened to my hair!?!

At least Conor looks cool with his retro Star Wars t-shirt.

You can see the video by going to MNN.com and scrolling to the very bottom of the screen. You can launch the video from there, or by clicking here.

Ok, so a bonus prize if you can comment back to this blog with the most popular (or most irritating) word used in the video...

You can almost smell the tempura!

My Fifteen Minutes

2009-04-17T17:01:00.003-04:00

A few things to catch up on. In my last blog, I made a few statements that I would like to follow up on. 1) my promise to interview Obama and McCain, and 2) my promise to actually collect free oil from my local sushi restaurant.

As for the first, I left messages for Mr. McCain. His assistant has not yet called me back to schedule some time, but I am hopeful. President Obama did return my call. Here is an exerpt from our recent phone interview:

Me: Mr. President, 1st of all, congratulations on your historic election.
Obama: Thank you. It was a hard fought victory and now I need to get to the business of the American people.

Me: Speaking of that, Mr. President, you recently promised a "New Era" of Energy. How do you plan to achieve that?
Obama: I'm glad you asked about that. I hope to pass legislation that will promote clean, renewable energy sources and lower America's dependence on foreign oil. And since it's just you and I talking, mano et mano, I thought maybe you could share some of your ideas...

Me: I'd love to. But first, I have a few questions: just how much oil does the White House kitchen staff go through on a weekly basis?
Obama: Well, I'm not exactly sure. I could have my...

Me: Would you classify the oil as 100% vegetable?
Obama: Uh...

Me: What's wrong, Mr. President? Would you prefer that I gave you these questions ahead of time and allowed the use of multiple tele-prompters during our interview? Hmm?

[Muffled noise in the background] Eric, did you brush your teeth yet? You better not be on that internets again. You've got school tomorrow!

Obama: Uh, I better go. Hillary wants to brief me on North Korea.

So that was my interview with Barack Obama. Well, at least he said he was Barack Obama...

As for the 2nd item, I have officially begun collecting free oil. As long as I am willing, and they are in business, I can get approximately 10 gallons of very high quality veggie oil from my local sushi restaurant every week. It's close by, and easy to filter, so it should be minimum effort to fuel the wagon.

On another note, the Mother Nature Network (mnn.com) heard about the Merzola and will be running a short video on their site in a few weeks. They taped an interview with us and shot some "b-roll" footage (stuff like us driving past a gas station and waving, pouring oil into the Merzola, filtering oil, etc.) to mix in. The only draw back is that they did it in 1080, so you will probably see every imperfection I have in HD! We did have to apply some "powder" to my forehead because apparently the glare was out of control. Go check out MNN and see what they are all about. They are pretty new (I think they started up in January) and a good source of information. I'll post a link to the video when it goes up. Stay tuned.

1.21 Giga-Watts

2008-11-18T14:17:00.004-05:00

1.21 giga-watts! Great Scott! Apparently that is what it will take for my "flux capacitor" to start in cold weather. And my battery doesn't quite have enough juice to accomplish that. In fact, I tested it and it came up just shy of 1.21 giga-watts. At least I figured this out on Sunday and not at 6am on Monday morning when I had to leave for the airport.

On another note, I forgot to mention a few other recent happenings. Several days after I replaced the glow-plugs, I went out one morning to start the car and nothing. Bupkus. It wouldn't even turn over. It was almost as if someone had disconnected the battery. I checked everything I could check and decided that the starter must be bad. So I called AAA and they towed it to my local Benz mechanic a few miles away. The next day, he called me and gave me the perverbial "I have good news and bad news" comment. Gulp (again)! Of course I asked for the bad news first, cuz I'm such an optimistic guy. He said the bad news was that they had to work on the car right there in the parking lot because they couldn't get it into the shop without hooking up some tow chains. Okkkkk.....The good news? They checked the glow-plug relay and it was good. They checked the starter and it was good. In fact, everything checked out good. It turns out that a ground wire on the starter had come unhooked. A simple reconnection and that was it! Wow, it never works out like that.

To top it all off, he told me that he had been looking for some seats from a junker to replace the seats in my car. If I didn't mention it, my seats were 25 years old. And apparently some 300 pound "little" old lady had been driving it that whole time and bouncing up and down in it. Not only that, but her best friend was also 300 pounds and whenever they drove to their weekly hair appointment, they both bounced the whole way. After 25 years of that, the springs were shot, the cushions were shot, and there were a few tears in the leather. Back to the point...he found some seats that were in great shape and they were mine (at cost) if I wanted them. Yesssssssss! That makes for a much better drive, trust me. I can actually see over the steering wheel now. Oh, and did I mention that I replaced the seats myself? Yet another notch on my "budding mechanic" belt of honor.

So what's next? Several people have told me recently that they actually read this blog, and all have asked me why I haven't written in a while. I guess the answer to that is now that I have the thing working, what do I really have to say? I suppose by creating a blog specifically about the Merzola, I have painted myself into a corner where I can only write about the car, or things having something to do with the car. If you thought that, then you are dead wrong. In addition to occasional updates about the Merzola, I shall now write about random things and make futile attempts to link that randomness to the yellow grease wagon. Maybe next week I will interview John McCain and Barack Obama and post their responses to a variety of environmental-related questions, such as (you guessed it) alternative fuel. I am sending a meeting invite to them now.

Shine Little Glow Plug, Glimmer, Glimmer

2008-10-28T10:08:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've blogged, but I suppose it's been a while since I've had anything to post about. It took longer than expected to get the parts in from Germany, so after a full month with no Merzola, I finally got it back.
I picked it up on Friday afternoon. It had a little trouble starting, but I wrote that off to not being driven for so long. The next morning, I tried to start it and nothing. It turned over, but wouldn't crank. I slept on it and had a thought. It's turning over, and I can smell diesel in the exhaust so maybe it's the glow plugs.
For you folks who aren't familiar with diesel engines, glow plugs look like spark plugs, but instead of creating a spark to ignite fuel/air mixture (like in a gas engine), glow plugs get super hot and heat up the combustion chamber to assist with cold starts. The diesel engine compresses air, heating up the chamber, then fuel is injected and combustion occurs. When it's cold (like at startup), it needs a little help heating up and that's where the glow plugs come in. Spark plugs spark repeatedly, but glow plugs are only used at startup. Make sense? Well, it did to me. It cranked fine when it was warm, but the next morning, it wouldn't. So I decided to replace the glow plugs myself.
I called the local parts stores but no one had them on hand. Luckily, they could order them and have them by 8am the next day. So I spent a few hours taking out glow plugs. It would normally be an easy task, but they are not easy to get to. In fact, I could only get to 3 of the 5. So I replaced those 3 and took a chance. If the bad glow plugs just happened to be the ones I replaced, then it would work. If not, I'd have to figure out how to get Merzola back to the shop and let them do it.
After reconnecting the battery cables, I gave it a crank...and to my surprise, it fired right up. Wow, that was lucky. My mechanical genius never ceases to amaze me (ok, so I'm easily amazed).
Now, after a month apart, Merzola and I have reunited and I can once again smell the sweet burn of veggie oil. Now back to my sushi lady...

Factoid of the Blog (courtesy of HowStuffWorks.com):
Compression
When working on his calculations, Rudolf Diesel theorized that higher compression leads to higher efficiency and more power. This happens because when the piston squeezes air with the cylinder, the air becomes concentrated. Diesel fuel has a high energy content, so the likelihood of diesel reacting with the concentrated air is greater. Another way to think of it is when air molecules are packed so close together, fuel has a better chance of reacting with as many oxygen molecules as possible. Rudolf turned out to be right -- a gasoline engine compresses at a ratio of 8:1 to 12:1, while a diesel engine compresses at a ratio of 14:1 to as high as 25:1.

Domo Arigato

2008-10-06T20:22:00.005-04:00

As it turns out, my earlier thought of visiting a local sushi restaurant was a good idea. While sitting around this evening wondering what we would do for dinner, we decided on sushi. Our neighborhood restaurant has been a long time favorite of ours, so we loaded up and headed over.

After dinner, the owner happened to walk by so we called her over to the table. We, of course, mentioned that we have been eating there for a number of years, and then asked boldly what they did with the vegetable oil that they use for their tempura. To my surprise, she said they change the fryers once per week and they fill up between 3 and 4 of the 4.5 gallon jugs normally. She said that a company was supposed to bring them a container to put the oil in so it could be disposed of, but they never brought it. She didn't say so, but I suspect that they were just throwing the jugs of oil in the dumpster. I think maybe she was afraid to say that because it's probably illegal.

Anyway, she asked what I wanted to do with the oil. When I told her, she got this perplexed look on her face and asked "Are you sure you can do that?". I wasn't quite sure how to answer her. Did she mean "is it legal" or did she mean "are you sure your car can run on veggie oil". I suspected the latter, so I explained to her about the conversion of the Merzola and that I was looking to recycle veggie oil to "help the environment". Of course that is my primary motivation, duh.

Getting down to details, she wasn't quite sure which day they emptied the fryer so we agreed that I should call her on Wednesday to discuss. Man, I gotta tell ya, if this works out, 15 gallons of pretty clean tempura oil each week will be more than enough to support my normal driving habits and probably enough to slowly begin to stockpile oil to accommodate my next road trip. This is kind of like getting a grant to do research. Does that make me a scientist?

Disaster Strikes Merzola!

2008-10-02T08:00:00.004-04:00

Ok, so I am exaggerating a little bit, but the headline is quite catchy, isn't it? Last week, in preparation for a Thursday to Tuesday trip to the beach, I took the Merzola in to have an oil leak diagnosed and repaired. It turns out it was the rear main seal which means they had to take the transmission out to replace the gasket. Wednesday at 5pm, the shop called to tell me there was no way they could finish the work by end of day so I would have to make alternate travel arrangements. I still have my suv, so no biggie, right? Wrong. As I mentioned in my last blog, Atlanta is currently in the midst of a gas crisis. One in fifteen stations actually have gas and you have to wait about 45 minutes in line just to get your chance. Ridiculous! So Wednesday evening, I spent about 2 hours driving around to get $50 in gas (that's the pump limit). Luckily, outside of Atlanta, there is plenty of fuel to be had.

The trip was fine apart from not being able to drive the Merzola and get some free mileage. It would make the perfect beach car, too. Nobody drives fast at the beach except when they are first coming in.

On Monday, I got an email from the shop...the infamous "good news and bad news":

"When we were removing the engine mounts and getting ready to remove the engine to inspect/replace the head gasket, the mounts broke and we no longer had supporting structure to hold the engine while we attached the chain to lift from the car.

The good news is the steel rods which insert through the motor mounts only cost $11.65 each. The bad news is there are no parts here in the US so we have to order them from Germany. It will take 7-10 days to get the parts shipped in."

One word...Ugh! I was actually kind of relieved when I read the description. When I first saw "good news and bad news" in the subject line, I thought for sure the bad news = lots of $$$. I suppose I can live without the Merzola for a week or so. It just means I will have to limit my driving (i.e. work from home). I guess the bright side is I will have a few weeks to stockpile some veggie oil.

Road Trip!

2008-09-16T09:52:00.005-04:00

As some of you know, I had my annual charity bike ride in Callaway Gardens. It's a 2 hour drive so I figured what better way to break in the Merzola than a road trip!

So Thursday evening, I spent a few hours pouring oil through my filter. I don't have a complete setup for filtering just yet, so I used a slightly more time consuming method called gravity. Basically, I pour the oil from my 4.5 gallon collection jugs through a 5 micron bag filter and let it drain into a bucket. Once it drained, I would pour it from the bucket into my veggie tank. The only hard part of this process is keeping the dog from licking the oil...I'm guessing it tastes like fried chicken or something similar.

Yes, this was my first attempt at filtering WVO, or waste vegetable oil. It was fairly easy, but a little time consuming with my current setup. But I suppose 2 hours of effort and a little bit of mess is worth $75 (15 gallons @ almost $5/gallon).

With a full veggie tank, we did a preliminary run to the Braves game that night. It ran as expected...like butter...melted butter.

Friday after work, we loaded up the Merzola with bikes and camping gear and headed south. Don't get me wrong...I think the Merzola looks cool by itself, but when you throw a couple bikes on the roof rack, it really looks cool. And even with the veggie tank in the back, there is still tons of room for gear. We cruised all the way down on veggie oil...and back.

I suppose it's a testament to it being a classic car that everyone wants to come up and talk to you about it. And that's even before they find out it's a veggie wagon. It's kind of like seeing an old friend that you haven't seen in a long time. The Merzola definitely ignites a feeling of nostalgia. People my age remember riding around in these things as kids...well some people do. We never had one...in fact, in 1984, this car was sold for $36,500! That's a lot of dough in 1984. Definitely too much for my folks.

When we got back to Atlanta on Sunday, it felt like the world was ending. Most gas stations were out of fuel and the ones that had it were charging an arm-and-a-leg and had dozens of cars waiting to fill up. Oh my gosh! There may be a fuel shortage so let's all run out and fill up everything we can so we actually create a fuel shortage. Personally, I hope Atlanta completely runs out of gas. There will probably still be diesel fuel available and tons of veggie oil. That sure would make for a nice commute!

So the grand total for the weekend of driving...270 miles on veggie oil. Free veggie oil, that is. A savings of about $60 (22mpg @ $5/gallon). Multiply that out over the course of a year and that's a significant savings.

It's Alive, It's Alive!

2008-09-06T17:35:00.004-04:00

So the Merzola was alive before, but since we last talked, I took the life out of it, then brought it back again. And it works!

It took me the better part of 2 days, but that's mainly because I have no mechanical background whatsoever. I have replaced a battery, changed a tire, and even replaced break pads. But I've never attempted anything like this. I must say the greasecar.com guys have their act together. They provided step-by-step instructions and even included a photo CD that was specific to my model of car.

Last weekend, I thought I would take on the first of 3 phases. In phase 1, which was by far the most time consuming, I installed my secondary tank, fuel valves, veggie filter, and ran 2 lengths of heater hose under the chassis (wow, I am even speaking mechanic lingo...chassis...I'm so cool). Then I spliced into the car's coolant lines. The basic idea is to take coolant as it exits from the engine (it's hot now) and send that back to the veggie tank. The hot liquid circulates inside the coils of the tank to heat the veggie oil, then returns to the radiator to be cooled down again and then recirculate. After I finished, the big test was to drive the car for about 20 minutes until the engine heated up. My main goal was for the car to not overheat. It didn't...congratulations, you are 1/3 of the way complete.

At this point, I was in a groove. Cocky, if you will. I had the perverbial 'big head', so I attempted phase 2...the fuel system. In this phase, you splice into the fuel lines and run lines from the diesel tank and the veggie tank into the fuel valves. Then you run lines from the fuel valves back into the fuel pump. The big test here as that the car will actually run when you are finished. So I cranked it and nothing...turns out, there was a little air in the fuel lines so by the time the air was out, it ran like a champ.

Today, I decided to take on the wiring. With my veggie kit, I purchased the optional "Copilot" which is a gps-sized computer unit that monitors temperatures, veggie level, and switch-over. In manual mode, an alarm sounds when the engine reaches the optimum temperature. Then all you have to do is press a button and the computer signals the valves to switch so that the fuel pump pulls fuel from the veggie tank instead of the diesel. Just before you turn the car off, you press the button again and purge the veggie oil out of the fuel lines and then switch back to diesel. This was the most daunting of the tasks for me. Wiring usually requires patience, more than anything else...and that's one thing I don't have. Again, this turned out to be easier than expected...primarily because of the detailed instructions. The big test here was to start the car on diesel, then switch it to purge mode. The goal of this test is to time how long it takes for diesel to start flowing into the veggie tank. This is recorded as the purge time. The aforementioned onboard computer is then set with this purge time so Copilot knows how long to purge at the end of a ride. 12 seconds...but more importantly, it worked!

After some tidying up, I drove to Costco and bought about 70 lbs of soybean oil. You should've seen some of the looks I was getting pouring the oil into the tank in the parking lot. I cranked it up, drove a few miles and prepared for my big moment. I double-checked all of the guages one last time and pressed the button on Copilot to switch from diesel to veggie. The engine didn't stop, but pressing the gas pedal didn't do anything. Uh oh...as I began to decellerate, the fuel started to hit the engine and it took off. Was it really running on veggie oil? Or did I screw something up? When I stopped at the red light, I knew it was right...I could smell the hot oil coming from the exhaust. It didn't smell great, but it sure beat the smell of diesel...and no CO2! It's alive! It's Alive! IT'S ALIVE!

I will probably drive it everywhere now just to smell the grease. I love it! Next thing on the agenda...create my home filtering system so I can really drive for free!

Inching Along...

2008-08-20T14:42:00.002-04:00

Remember this guy? I do...but the Inchworm wasn't the coolest. Not even close! The Big Wheel was the coolest, followed closely by the Green Machine. I remember when I was 5 years old and I got my first Big Wheel for Christmas. I think I had worn holes in the rear wheels within the first week from all the power-sliding. But I digress...

I am "inching" along with the quest. Today, I ordered my conversion kit (yay!) from Greasecar.com. I'm not sure exactly when it is supposed to be delivered but I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. I think I will attempt to install everything by myself at first. I should realize fairly quickly if I am getting in over my head...after all, I'm no mechanic. I'm told it's a fairly easy process, though. Any of you reader(s) out there want to volunteer your assistance? Worst case, I will take it to the Merzola shop and get professional help.

On the collection front, I made some good progress today. As a little history, I used to work at Chic Fil A in high-school. I remembered that we used 100% peanut oil in the "henny penny"...that's what they called the fryers. You could always tell when the oil needed to be changed out because the chicken started to have a burnt taste/smell. So, on a whim today, I called the owner/operator of my neighborhood Chic Fil A and told him about my project and asked him what they do with their waste oil. Apparently, like most places, they empty their waste oil into a big container out by the dumpster. Every so often, some company comes by and empties the big container. Long story short, he said I was more than welcome to come get as much as I wanted. The only catch is that I have to figure out how to get it from the big container into my smaller, more portable containers. I guess now I'll be on the lookout for some sort of pump and hose to syphon the WVO. Hopefully, it will be the kind that allows me to turn a crank to get the flow started instead of the redneck way which is sucking on the hose...yuck!

So as I said, I am inching along, but progress is progress. I wish there was some way for me to get paid to do this stuff...hmmm, now there's a thought!

Ok, so it needs some work...

2008-08-11T13:02:00.006-04:00

It's almost 25 years old, so you have to expect some repairs are necessary, right?

Part of the reason I got an older model diesel was because they are way cheaper than a newer model diesel. Take a newer model VW Golf as a comparison...a 2003 VW Golf Diesel will cost between $15k and $18k! That's not the kind of money I can experiment with. But at what point am I spending more on maintenance and repairs?

I drove home from the airport yesterday and after about 5 minutes in the driveway, I had a fairly large oil stain that had dripped from under the engine compartment. I just finished a laundry list of repairs and replacing the front seal was one of the high-cost items. I thought that was supposed to correct the leaking. I expect there to be some drip, but not that much!

I was already planning on taking the Merzola back by the shop since a part for the driver's side door lock just came in. I will have them re-check the seal, I suppose. I hope this is not foreshadowing. I am now sitting at my desk asking the question: "At what point do I stop putting money into a 25 year old car?"

I'm not at that point yet...not even close. I am still madly in love with the Merzola. It is the perfect car...if it works. I don't expect it to be perfect, but I think, in hindsight, I have sort of put her up on this pedestal as a marvel of semi-modern auto-engineering. I will chalk this up to standard fare for a car of this age. Heck, with a little kitty-litter, I won't even know the stain in the driveway is there.

I have already started planning my first road-trip in the Merzola. I am thinking a long weekend in the Shenandoah National Park. It's almost like the Merzola was made for this sort of trip. Plenty of space for passengers...plenty of space for camping gear in the back...plenty of space on top for bikes (pending my Thule rack).

I can almost feel the crisp autumn morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the smell of mother nature and...what's that other smell? Tempura? No, it's the Merzola! When it's time to make breakfast or dinner over the campfire, who will have a larger supply of cooking oil than moi? Anyone up for some camping? I'll cook!

Collection Has Begun

2008-08-07T11:08:00.006-04:00

Even before performing the conversion on the Merzola, I have begun collecting waste vegetable oil (WVO). I must acknowledge that the first person to donate to my cause was Louie. He gave me a 7oz jar of left-overs to start my collection. It is still sitting on my desk at work.

It would take a heck of a long time to gather enough veggie oil for fuel if I go about it in 7oz increments, so where do people get large quantities of oil, you may ask?

Not McDonald's...apparently, most fast food restaurants use oil with shortening in it. Oil with shortening tends to clog up fuel lines, so I need to look for 100% vegetable oil.

I started asking around, and the general consensus is sushi restaurants. Apparently, sushi restaurants change their oil quite frequently so they can keep their tempura nice and white. Now days, it seems like there is a sushi restaurant on every corner, so I have lots to choose from. My only fear is a potential language barrier in trying to explain what I plan to do with the oil.

As of 2000, the US was producing in excess of 11 billion liters of waste vegetable oil annually, mainly from industrial deep fryers in potato processing plants, snack food factories and fast food restaurants. If all those 11 billion liters could be collected and used to replace the energetically equivalent amount of petroleum (an ideal case), almost 1% of US oil consumption could be offset. However, use of waste vegetable oil as a fuel competes with some already established uses. (from Wikipedia)

This is kind of scary...even if we fully utilized all of the waste veggie oil, it would barely move the needle. It turns out that most waste veggie oil in the US is used to spray on livestock feed (eww). I believe that practice has been banned in Europe.

For starters, I have a friend who runs a restaurant in town. He doesn't go through a lot of oil, but said he would be happy to set it aside for me. It turns out, it's about 4-5 gallons per week. That's not enough to get me where I need to go, but it's a good start. In fact, I calculate that if I can get my greasy hands on another 5-10 gallons per week, I will have plenty for my daily travels as well as a chance to stockpile a bit for road-trips.

So any of you dedicated readers (all 1 of you) out there know of a grease connection, feel free to send it my way.

For now, I will continue to buy biodiesel.

The Merzola

2008-07-30T16:26:00.003-04:00

Here it is, and I shall call it...Merzola! That's part MERcedes benZ and part canOLA oil.

It's a 1984 300TD Wagon with 267k miles on it. Ok, so before you gasp, realize that 81-85 diesel Merz engine is known as the "million mile engine". So 267k miles is just getting past the break-in period. From what I've been told, the rest of the car will disintegrate before the engine stops working. With some regular maintenance, I should be able to pass this on to my son when he is old enough to drive.

I found it on eBay and picked it up in Dallas, TX. The ride back home was a blast (minus the fact that the A/C wasn't working). I had all the windows down and the sunroof open (manual) and cruised along at 75-80 mph the whole way. This baby is solid. It's a diesel, so it doesn't have the pep of a gasoline engine, but it's a turbo-diesel, so it has more giddy-up than your typical diesel.

I currently have it in the shop getting the critical things taken care of such as the A/C, front break pads, and new motor mounts. Long term plans are to rebuild the springs and cushions in the front seats for a slightly more comfortable ride. Outside of that stuff, it's a solid car.

In the coming weeks, I will order my conversion kit (most likely from Greasecar.com) and then slowly ween myself off the petroleum teet.

I have already started shopping locally for waste veggie oil from a few local restaurants. So far, I have a commitment for about 5 gallons per week. I figure about 5 more a week and my normal driving routine (you know, commuting to work, school, etc) will be free of charge. Some rough calculations and I figure 3 - 3.5 years of driving for free and I will have completely paid for the car and all the conversion equipment.

Feel free to email me if you want to learn more about doing this for yourself. I have been evangelizing with friends and the general consensus is "wow, that sounds cool. let me know how it goes."

Merzola!

How It All Works

2008-07-06T13:13:00.005-04:00

At first glance, it looks like something you'd find in a drug-smuggler's car, but maybe a little too obvious. Actually, it's part of greasecar's 2-tank system and it works something like this (this is a lay-person's explanation):

Veggie oil is stored in a separate tank, much like the one in the picture. Inside the tank is a heating element. Inside the engine compartment is a filter, much like a standard diesel filter. The engine is started on standard diesel fuel. Once the engine reaches an ideal operating temperature (i think about 180 degrees F), you flip a switch which tells the fuel pump to stop pulling fuel from the diesel tank and start pulling from veggie tank. I think during the period of time that you are waiting for the engine operating temperature to increase, the veggie oil in the tank is also heating up (there is a heating element in the tank) so it will flow more freely. Once you cut over, you are driving for free, essentially. You are supposed to switch back over to diesel a few minutes before you turn off the ignition to purge any remaining veggie oil out of the fuel lines. Apparently, if you leave veggie oil in there, it may cause some blockage. It seems complicated but it's not really. Greasecar sells a computer that monitors all of this stuff and will tell you when it's time to switch or can switch for you automagically.

There are other systems out there...there is a single-tank system (see Elsbett.com) which does not require a separate tank for veggie oil. It can be mixed in any ratio in the regular tank. This system does, however, require some modification to the engine (glow plugs, injectors, etc.) to function. Probably more expensive to convert, but easier to manage.

You could always make your own bio-diesel, too. It requires no conversion at all. The catch is that you use potentially toxic chemicals (methanol, i think) to convert veggie oil to bio-diesel that can then be filled into your regular tank and run on a standard diesel engine. It's a fairly involved process to convert the oil into bio-diesel.

As of right now, I am weighing the alternatives and reading online forums to try to make the best decision. Whichever way I go, my goals are the same...

Next week, I will introduce my new car!

The Revelation

2008-07-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

I remember now hearing about vegetable oil powering diesel engines, but only after being re-introduced to the idea. They (I will be writing a future post about "they": who "they" are and why "they" are so influential) say a child will reject new foods until it has been presented to them 12 times (on average), and since this new concept only took 2 introductions to take root, I guess I am ahead of the curve...if I were a 3 year old. Somehow when I first heard the idea years ago, I thought it was for granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing environmentalists. That was not me, for sure. Don't get me wrong; I love nature and being outside, but not at the expense of A/C and heated seats.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to rent out my house in midtown. I posted it on craig's list and received an overwhelming response. While I was at the house waiting for a potential tenant to show up for a tour, I received another email inquiry. I had a few minutes to kill, so I called the guy to discuss. He was moderately interested in the house, but VERY interested in the garage. The garage is nothing to speak of. It's big enough for 1 car, but the door is manual and it's not what I would call "clean".

It turns out, the guy inquiring had just finished Pharmacy school and was moving back in town for a job. Pharmacy...garage...He's cooking meth! Why else would he be so interested? He called me "sir" on the phone and went to Tech for undergrad, so I figured he couldn't be that bad...meth or not. So I decided to rent to him (without ever meeting him in person). The following weekend, when he was moving in, I told him of my "meth" fantasy and he just chuckled...he said "No, I'm not cooking meth...I'm cooking something else." He proceeded to explain to me that he collects waste vegetable oil (WVO) from local restaurants, filters it in the garage, and uses it to power his 2002 VW Jetta TDI.

Genius! Why hasn't everyone done this (that is the topic of a future discussion all by itself)? Immediately, I latched onto the idea. As he gave me a tour of his garage refinery and car, I started forming a list in my head of all the reasons I should do this and all the reasons it would never work!

Pro's (in order of importance to me):

1. Cool science project and topic of discussion.

2. Free (or really cheap) fuel for my car.

3. Very low carbon output.

Con's (in no particular order):

1. It has to be very expensive otherwise everyone would be doing it.

2. It has to be very time consuming...otherwise everyone would be doing it.

3. Why isn't everyone doing it?

This all happened about 3 weeks ago and since then, I have been what some people might call "obsessed" with the idea. I have been reading, learning, evangelizing, self-convincing, and shopping non-stop since then. In all that research and internal debate, I have answered (or justified) for myself:

1. It has to be very expensive otherwise everyone would be doing it.

Expensive is relative. Here is a list of the things that must be acquired in order to attempt this science project.

Car with a diesel engine
Kit that allows your diesel engine to use vegetable oil for fuel
Supply of clean (or straight) vegetable oil (SVO)

Obviously, if you are not one of the few people currently driving a diesel in the USA, the car would be the largest up front cost. Unless...you were in the market for a new car anyway. With my gas-guzzling SUV nearing it's end-of-life (120k miles, which, incidently, is the warm-up period for most diesel engines), I was definitely in the market.

The metamorphosis should be less expensive, unless you get a really crappy car. Just the parts (2nd tank, some hoses, pumps, switches, etc.) can be purchased online for less than $1000, depending on the model of your car.

The supply of fuel can range from "free" to a heck of a lot cheaper than regular fuel.

2. It has to be very time consuming...otherwise everyone would be doing it.

My renter spends about 2 hours per month filtering his vegetable oil that he collects mainly from sushi restaurants. These restaurants currently pay a company to dispose of their waste oil. It seems to me that they would be excited about giving it away.

3. Why isn't everyone doing this?

That is the looming question. I have some ideas such as my long-lasting theory that Americans are more than happy to pay for convenience, but I will explore this question in more detail later.

For now, I am off to search ebay, craig's list, and auto-trader for my diesel.