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Try telling any green environmental lefty that Ethanol is a bad thing and show them why, and they turn their nose saying, "But, but, but, but its GREEN!"

fuel economy isn't enough what we need are carbon neutral power sources. some people are trying to do that by making companies that provide carbon neutral fuel but we've got a long way to go, trying to 'preach' people into using more efficient equipment is not nearly as effective as trying to promote and support the development of companies that actually give people a REAL solution that replaces the carbon dioxide increasing fuels we use now.

Honestly, I just don't get the hype over hybrids. A Jetta turbo diesel gets comparable mileage, is a larger, more comfortable, more powerful car, and presents no extraordinary risk to emergency services trying to free you in an accident.

If you're worried about emissions, run it on biodiesel. Now you've closed the carbon loop, and are running on a 100% renewable resource. Even hybrids can't make that claim.

In comparison, hybrids just seem to me like a solution in search of a problem.

Myself and my three kids use only around 140 gal/year per each even with three cars--I assume that the 1000 gallon figure includes heating, manufacturing, shipping, and so forth? I have no way of evaluating whether the correct figure is near 12 or 150 gal/acre.

This is good news. It has already been demonstrated that vegetables provide a good renewable source of hydrocarbons. Perhaps now we will find a use for all those cucumbers

See biodiesel.org and veggievan.com for info on biodiesel in general, or to make your own biodiesel at home. Also see Josh Tickell's book "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" for detailed instructions on becoming your own fuel supply without making any changes to your engine.

Better still, a knowledgable mechanic can modify a standard Diesel engine so that it runs on straight vegetable oil, no chemistry required, just as Rudolf Diesel intended his creation to work.

By the way, those of you living here in the specacular Rocky Mountain region might want to drop in at the Sustainable Living Fair in Ft. Collins, CO this weekend (09/12-09/13). Josh Tickell will be there to give hands-on demonstrations of making biodiesel; you can also see cars and vans that run on hydrogen in the form of compressed gas cylinders and fuel cells.

Heh - those who use a Vegetable-oil powered vehicle which can run on sunflower oil do exactly that :)

These guys have been at it for quite some time. Also has appeared now and again in Home Power Magazine....

It's well known that you can run a diesel engine on cooking oil. Just as long as its filtered and you switch back to dino diesel for a cool down before shutting it off. Here's a great site for more info on biodiesel. Veggie Van. I recomend the book that they sell. From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank.

This has been done before, but it's cool that other are trying it too.
There are some great links to Biodiesel sites too. It's nice to see some people trying to take some baby steps, towards environmentally friendly vehicles, instead of just trying to go straight to the top, as is the case with hydrogen powered vehicles, which are great, but too expensive

Not to mention that diesel is just another petroleum product. The same limitations apply to diesel as do gasoline...

Also I think vegetable oil smells alot better than diesel fuel.

Hmm? would a vegie oil powered diesel fit in a bike fork? I suppose it wouldn't be any quieter.

I don't like the idea of all that engine weight being on the front wheel. It makes steering more unpredictable.

And I'd prefer one that got 80 miles to the tank not 20 miles. Like my people powered bike has a better range that that. Having to fill up twice a day would be a pain for me and the gas station.

Does the battery recharge going down hill? Maybe you could link it up with solar cells?

I've noticed that the treadleys with engines around my town are a bit slow to accellerate and slow for top speed compared to the bike couriers or myself. Personally, I absolutely depend on being able to beat the cars in the drag race from one side of the traffic lights to the other (up to 6 lanes) so I get a space on the road.

oh for a handlebar mounted paint gun, to shoot the inconsiderate motorists. Now that would be some useful commuter tech.

Yup, in the future we will all have frying cars.

You know, there are some people who fervently believe that.

Now we just have to find a way to convert human fat to electricity. A luposuction powered electic car. You get a body that you want, save the environment and stop funding the terrorist!

To use this in automobiles. That would put a stake in the hearts of those in the middle east (assuming it's not oil based).

It is a petroleum product. But you're on the right track--we already have a way to use biofeuls in your existing diesel car. You can use a manufactured Biodiesel or roll your own more or less for free. And there are some good cars with diesel engines! Trucks, SUVs, Volkswagens and Mercedes.

I read last year that Rudolf Diesel actually developed the engine so that it would be useful in undeveloped regions where they would have to use alternative fuels such as biodiesel.

According to this website:

Dr. Rudolf Diesel first developed the diesel engine in 1895 with the full intention of running it on a variety of fuels, including vegetable oil. Diesel demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 using peanut oil as fuel. In 1911 he stated "The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it." In 1912, Diesel said "the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." Since Diesel's time, the design of the diesel engine has been modified so it can run on the cheapest fuel available: petroleum "diesel" fuel.

...from waste McDonald's french fry oil. Details can be found here.

BTW - BioDiesel can be run in *any* diesel engine, unmodified...I'm running it in my VW Jetta TDI. My neighbors think I'm nuts, until they realize it actually works. ;->

Probably not. My friend Josh is the Veggie Van guy and did this a few years ago. The fast food companies saw it as a way to advertise. The leftover grease is also used for various other cosmetics, like lipstick; at least, it used to be when my grandparents had a drive-in 20 years ago. I doubt they really make that much off selling it for cosmetics, but probably more than having to dispose of it.

You're right though--the restaurants probably won't be interested in continuing to give it away once it's no longer novel. However, it's entirely possible that they might be able to sell the grease for biodiesel and make more than for cosmetics.

In the long run though, recycling the grease from these restaurants isn't as important as being dependent on renewable, domestically-produced, cleaner-burning resources.

Caveat: Although I have friends who run diesels on various fuels, I myself do not. So I'm a friend of experts, not an expert myself.

Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to run on vegetable oil. That's how it was originally supposed to work, and it was originally demonstrated at the World's Fair running peanut oil.

Modern diesel engines are slightly modified to optimally burn the refinery waste products we call "diesel fuel". But only slightly...

If you want to efficiently burn vegetable oil in an unmodified modern diesel, you should use biodiesel (easily home-made, see Tickell's site for details).

If you want to run straight veggie oil, you need to preheat the oil (no problem when the engine is running, plenty of heat easily available, but you will need a preheater or a small tank of "starter fuel" at startup time). You also need to make sure that your filters are very efficient, and that you have bacteria/fungi controls, and that you have a water trap. These are the same considerations with regular "diesel fuel", but since the latter is nasty hostile petrowaste and the former is edible bio-friendly fryer grease you will have to be much more careful and vigilant.

Most people running straight vegetable oil are uber-geeks. They like to tinker and they aren't afraid of breaking things, because they know they will be able to get something to work if they need to. If you don't feel like that is a description of you, try biodiesel instead, and you won't have to make any modifications to your vehicle at all. You can even mix biodiesel and petrodiesel with no problem.

That is why biodiesel is such a good choice. Because biodiesel contains some oxygen, it burns more completely, way lowering the amount of unburnt hyrdocarbons vs mineral diesel.

Current diesel cars also do not use catalytic converters. The sulfur in mineral diesel quickly ruins them. Biodiesel does not contain sulphur, so catalytic converters could be used on cars that run biodiesel, even further reducing the particulate count. A good site on this is at Veggievan.org

Building the solar pannel requiers more energy than you get out of it. Same as a battery. It's only "efficient" for the end user.

Petrolium is efficient because we are just harvesting millions of years of sunlight-and-plant stored energy. In real terms, it's not efficient at all. Ethanol is more efficient, brewing burnable liquid fuel out of sugar, or using lye and methanol to crack vegetable oil into "diesel" fuel. Or just burn the veggie oil directly, like Heir Diesel did in his original engines.

All of these convert sunlight into fuel, with various efficiencies and usefulness. I think the direct use of veggie oil to be the best myself, but one still has to press the oil out!

The answer, I believe, is to use them all. Bio-diesel, veggie oil, ethanol, hydrogen, tide and wave forces, wind, sunlight, petrolium.

The "scarce resource" idea is a myth. 150 years ago, whale oil was an important strategic national resource. Silica is as common as sand, and more valuable than gold when formed into a computer chip.

Bob-

With all this talk about technologically risky fuel sources, nobody seems to pay attention to a replenishable, efficient and very low polluting fuel that doesn't require an entirely new infrastructure.
Biodiesel

Yes, you can run a diesel engine on basically same the oil that MacDonalds uses to make french fries. The diesel engine was originally designed to work with vegetable oil, but the oil companies scuttled that.
Modern diesel engines have less carbon monoxide than gas engines, but more particulate matter (soot). Put biodiesel in the diesel engine and the carbon monoxide goes down even more, and the particulate matter virtually goes away. And it is not 5, 10, 20 years away. It works today, on current technology. And you can get 50 miles to the gallon on a diesel engine, while blowing off OPEC.
How cool is that?!

Diesel engines are already all over the place, so we don't need to create a new infrastructure, and biodiesel is actually easier and safer to store than petrodiesel. Check it out!
VeggieVan
BioDiesel.Org
Biodiesel Mike
Pacific Biodiesel

There are various schemes using plant oils to power engines, moslty diesel engines. Some of them are as simple as mixing it in with the regular diesel gas, which requires basically no modification, but I think the engine doesn't like to start with this mixture, so you might want to be able to switch to a pure source for starting.

The best method does some chemical magic on the oil to make it into biodiesel which can be run in a basically unmodified engine. As with most fuel conversions however, there is some concern about various plastic hoses which might react chemically with the new feul - but this seems to be a minor concern.

For all the details, and a fun read, get thee hence to veggievan.org. And almost no discussion of alternative energy would be complete without a link to Home Power Magazine - download the most recent issue.

Now then, if you really wanted to get me excited.... you'd be talking about a consumer grade 5 Kw or so Fuel cell that could operate with good efficiency using a high grade of Bio-diesel. Which BTW can be made from virtually any vegetable oil or even oil derived from diatom algae. Of course, you'd have to learn to make your own fuel from the leftover peanut oil that the local burger joint cooked it's fries, in, but fortunately, the book with the recipe for how to do it isn't that hard to obtain...

The Veggie Van - the guy also wrote a book called "From the Fryer to the Tank" all about making your own fuel

National Biodiesel Board

Almost always cheaper than regular gas, although a bit worse for the environment.

Not after they are converted to run on vegetable oil!

Imagine filling up yourself and your car at the McDonalds on the corner. The best part is that you exhaust smells like fries!

Biodiesel is made from used fryer oil. Cheap, less polluting than petrol-diesel, radically non-corporate (you can make it in your garage), and recycled to boot! The best thing is the tailpipe emmissions smell like french fries!

Biodiesel is made from used fryer oil. Cheap, less polluting than petrol-diesel, radically non-corporate (you can make it in your garage), and recycled to boot! The best thing is the tailpipe emmissions smell like french fries!

That's got to be an awful smelling vehicle.

Not necessarily. I've read that vehicles run on biodiesel (see the National Biodiesel Board and the Veggie Van for more info) have exhaust that smell like french fries. I'd take a wild and crazy guess that this car's exhaust smell more like wet leaves than anything. But then again, I'm an optimist.

Also of interest is the way Malaysia is investing hugely into a diesel mixture which consists of diesel and replaceble palm oil! The newsitem dated 01/15/2001, is here . It seems that they are already building their first processing plant.

My friend Josh has written a book on making and using biodiesel. Those interested in this story would no doubt also be interest in his site and book.

A friend of mine from high-school has written a book on "bio-diesel" and has toured around for quite some time promoting the idea of recycling used cooking oils. He was being sponsored by a major fast-food chain which provided him with free spent oils where ever he went. (According to my father, who used to own a small fast-food restaurant a couple of decades ago, this used grease is often sold to cosmetics companies, so it wasn't exactly like they were giving him something for nothing.)

You can find more out about it by visiting his site http://veggievan.org.

Simple answer: Get yourself a recent diesel powered car and make your own Biodiesel. It's open-source, and cheap! Just hop down to your local fried-food place and buy their old fryer oil and convert it to biodegradable, cheap (@$.50/gal) fuel that makes your exhaust smell like french fries.

Or, if you want, buy some from a commercial distributor, that is most likely soy based.

Check out the following:
The National Biodiesel Board
The VeggieVan

You wrote: "We need a way to show the oil companies that we're fed up of lining their pockets with cash" which is kind of funny since there are so many ways, and so many organisations doing so.
Rule #1: Buy NO unneccessary plastic items. I make an exception, personally, for my kids' legos. But I don't buy a new case for my computer just because the ATX form came out, I hacksaw the old one. Plastics are essentially a waste product of the petroleum industry.
Rule #2: Buy NOTHING from Exxon. Because we need to convince the Oil Barons that there are some things that don't blow over - and Exxon's had the most egregious crimes as well as being the last vestigal trace of the original Petroleum Trust (Standard Oil = S.O. = Esso = Exxon, you can confirm this easily).
Rule #3: Stop whining and do something. I am converting my truck to gas/electric hybrid ASAP. My bud Pete runs used fryer oil in his (unmodified) Mercedes diesel.

Alternative Energy Engineering
Ballard Fuel Cells
Electro Automotive
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
Greenpeace International Homepage
Home Power Magazine
Hydrogen Web (English/German)
innEVations
Jerry Halstead's Car
Low Rolling Resistance Tires
Phoenix EAA
Roofing Systems
Unique Mobility
Veggie Van (BioDiesel)
Wilde EVolutions catalog
United Solar Systems Home Page

--Charlie

What's that? I'll take a big mac and four gallons of peanut oil to go...

By the way, you are 100% correct about what biodiesel is and how it is produced: roughly four parts oil, one part methanol, or three parts oil one part ethanol, plus just enough sodium hydroxide to catalyze the reaction. (too much and you get soap.)

The "trans-esterification" reaction (spelling?) splits the oil into a glycerin component and the more useful "biodiesel" which can be used as is in virtually any modern diesel engine, with less pollutants (translated: no sulfur in the fuel to get burned into S02) and some nice handling qualities (higher flash point, lower jelling temperature).

Diesel engine on fast food grease pits has been done. Go to http://www.veggievan.org. The guy who did it is a friend of mine. It's a great story.