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Drive a Greasecar - DIY Biodiesel
TinyTim writes "Sure, you could buy expensive biodiesel for you car - or you can hack your diesel to run on filtered vegetable oil. Kits take a few hours to install and cost about $800, but you can get your fuel free from restaurant deep-fryers (the filters are ~$10/2000mi). Supposedly no loss of performance or mileage, and you can change between diesel and veggie oil with the flick of a switch. A previous article mentioned the theoretical possibility, but it looks like kits are now available from greasecar.com."
Would I have to cook my food in diesel?
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Once many people start using this, you wont be able to get the fuel for free. It is free now, because grease is considered waste. Once it has a value, restaurants will charge for it. Besides, this is a short term solution to a long term problem.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
And if you thought you were leaking oil before, now you have to identify if it's veggie oil, or if it's motor oil.
I suppose you could try tasting it..you might get to know your fuel by taste! Bob's Burger Stand and his unmistakable motor fuel..er, deep fat frier grease!
I can see it now: You drive into your local Drive-Thru and order a burger, fries, shake and 5 gallons of their day-old fryer grease!
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
I finally eliminate all french fries from my diet, but if I get a cool mod for my car, I'll still smell like I work at McDonalds.</sarcasm>
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I remember reading that running on vegetable oil smells more or less like french fries. Anyone who has worked fast food can imagine the smell of burned grease-trap fuel. *wretch*
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Exactly how much used vegetable oil do we have lying around to convert into biodiesel? If there's so much waste veggie oil, there must be some other industry that takes it and uses it for another manufacturing process. It's a great idea, but I don't see this displacing the oil industry anytime soon.
(I'm thinking of the deep fryers used to cook the french fries.)
And imagine the revenue Krispy Kreme donuts stores could get out of this! "Coffee, donut and fillup for only $2.99!"
Don't get too excited about this if you, like me, already have a gasoline-based car. This will only work if your car is already diesel-based.
Bah, I knew I should have bought a German car!
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
I can't run my truck off vegetable oil. I'd be too tempted to cook chicken in it as I drive. Then again, I'm already tempted to drink the diesel for the ethanol, so it's really a toss-up.
Homer: Hey! Hey! You're taking our grease!
Man #1: It's our grease now. [he takes Homer's shovel and hits him over the head with it]
Homer: Daahhh!!
Man #2: We run the grease racket in this town. [they start to leave]
Homer: Hey, that's my shovel!
Man #1: We also run the shovel racket.
[the two men drive away in their truck labeled "Acne Grease and Shovel"]
replace 'berserkeley' with 'berkeley' to respond via email.
I distinctly remember watching a show on Discovery Channel (I believe it was Invention) from several years ago about a guy in the US who drives to various fast food outlets to get used vegetable oil for his car. He said the only problem was that his car always smells like french fries. Here are a couple links to related stories that are more recent. July 2001 and October 2001
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Bart: When you want grease, go to the source. Good old Krusty Burger.
Homer: Oh, I'll say. Look at that red-headed kid. There must be twenty dollars worth of grease on his forehead alone.
Bart: I was thinking more of the deep-fryer.
Homer: All right, we'll try it your way.
J
Most restaurants with friers, dump the old oil into a large bin out back. Every few months a tanker truck comes and picks up the oil. Then they make crayons and other shit out of it. Point is, restaurants get money for their old oil. Why would they give it away?
The site and the explanation is here: BioBus
Homer: Used grease is worth money? [gasps] Then my arteries are clogged with yellow gold! I'm rich Apu! Rich, I ... aaggh! [clenches heart, then sighs] Money in the bank.
----
Striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap ho
The car starts on diesel and after several miles Mr. Noe-Hays flips a switch and changes to his other fuel source. At the end of the day he switches back to diesel to clean the engine of grease.
Now, I wonder if it's just at the beginning of the day, or if he has to be on diesel every time he turns the key. If the latter, and you're mostly driving around town, then you'll never get the chance to use the oil part of it. (Not to detract from its usefulness on long journeys, of course.)
I had a quick look at the greasecar site, but couldn't find the answer to this question. Anyone know the deal?
Could I have Olive Oil with a nice Balsamic Vinegarette?
There are still harmful emissions, and there's not enough fuel available to take a significant chunk out of the current fuel usage. Sorry, this isn't a solution. The only current solution is to reduce the amount of fuel you use, by taking a bus or other mass transit, for instance.
"you can get your fuel free from restaurant deep-fryers"
I don't think that is going to work too well in Northern Wisconsin in the winter.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Berkeley, CA runs recycling trucks on this stuff.
There is a place in SF where you can buy it for your car. $3 or something a gallon (bit pricey, even for our ridiculous $1.75 87).
-Sean
One thing I wonder -- what is the total emissions picture for operating this vehicle based on fryer food? One problem with the most common renewable energy source for gasoline engines -- ethanol -- is that you use almost as much energy in the conversion process that you gain from making the ethanol. How is vegetable oil made? Once use surpasses the amount reclaimed from food service, would it make economic sense to make vegetable oil just for vehicular use?
Make sure that is a diesel car you fill up at those stations, of course.
-Sean
I'm sure it's 'commercially produced' vegetable oil.
I live near Hampshire College and there are several of these cars driving around with the www.greasecar.com printed on the body. Volkswagens... Rabbits and a Bus I have seen. Our local rag did a srory on these pioneers. I am thinking about buying my neighbor's diesel Rabbit for $250.00 just so I can try the kit out.
pronoblem
Would someone using such a kit on a car be elligible for the AFV tax break despite it being aftermarket? Hybrids, such as the new Civic, Prius, and Insight all are, so clearly some petroleum use is allowed.
Making Vegetable oil isn't very difficult. You can buy high quality presses. Or even make your own. I mentioned this in a previous article, but From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank has instructions on not only how to make your fuel, but how to build a cheap oil press with a diesel engine of course :). This book also has really helpful tables on which plants will produce the most oil.
I just went 601.4 miles on my last tank, which used 13.3 gallons. That's around 45 miles per gallon.
The car is awesome. Same mileage as a silly little econobox such as a Metro, but with the power of an ordinary car. In fact it's probably got MORE torque than an ordinary car. I can pass gasoline cars easily in 5th gear on a hill, and I can let out the clutch from a stop without even touching the throttle!
And yes, I guess I can run it on grease!
I scoff at all you gasoline slaves.
Carl
Vote Libertarian
It's a little OT, but I saw this article over at popular science the other day.
For those who don't want to read the article, it describes VW's latest test/concept car. Two person, 600 lbs car. It has a tank for 1.7 gallons and gets better than 260 MPG(though only rated for 235. ONLY.). And no, it's not slow. They rated the top speed as over 70 MPH. Which is plenty fast, even for highway travel.
Ontopic: it runs on diesel fuel. Who wants to mod this car and make it even more environmentally friendly? "It barely even burns Vegetable Oil!"
I don't, however, know what's involved in applying the mod. Or if VW could even fit it in this car. But it would still be cool. I actually want one of these cars. Errr... this car. That would be sweet. *sigh* Time to go buy a lottery ticket.
because you really could end up charged with grease theft if you just pull up and fill your car up out of their oil dumpster.
there was an article about such a thing at Salon, but it no longer available i guess, though you can read it with google cache...
Grease Rustlers
Companies like Griffin have contracts with restaurants to come around regularly and pick up their grease. From Griffin's point of view, the grease is theirs the minute it enters the container.
So i'd definitely think it would be wise to at least ask the restaraunt you wanna fill up at before doing so.
Though I think it would be ridiculous, I could imagine such a problem.
I know that it's illegal to put aviation gasoline in your car because no road tax was paid on it. I suspect there could be some variation of that problem in this case as well.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Now, when you said process it yourself, what in the world are you referring to? Since... there isn't any processing, I mean.
The most critical part of the diesel is the fuel pump and injectors. They run at 3000-5000 psi with very low volume per stroke, so leakage cannot be tolerated. The fuel has to be filtered extremely well (sub micron). My worry with biodiesel is that it might plug filters due to microbial growth [always a problem in diesel], or the vegatable oil hydrolyze into organic acid plus glycerol. The organic acids will cause corrosion of the injector pump plungers and injector tips. Not good at all. The fuel will also have different rubber swell characteristics, so you may get fuel leaks. I'd try this first on a imetal-to-metal Mercedes with simple to replace rubber rather than a Peugeot or VW with a fuel-lubricated pump and that main O ring soaking in fuel.
I expect vegatable oil could be made to work with additives: a biostat, acid neutralizer plus seal swell control. But it would have to remain a separate product becauase petroleum oil and vegatable oils aren't miscible. If you wanted a blend, you'd need an emulsifier, and the results might be too viscous.
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Yeah, it's as simple as building a car engine-sized fusion generator.
What you get is a renewable resource that may not be better for the environment, but is better for geopolitical reasons. That's not so bad in my book.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Can it be made any more efficiently than corn-based ethanol? Hempseed or other oil-bearing plants?
Sounds like something Ron Jeremy would drive.
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Q: "Do you want fries with that?"
For the average school district, seems to me. God knows the cafeteria must throw off enough waste "fuel" to supply the school fleet, with plenty left over.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Yes, that's right. Left over grease is purchased for the eventual use in soap. And restaurants gets paid for their leftovers, so I wonder how this guy is getting free oil? Is he stealing the oil?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
The former is the reason why most people who do this secure a source of vegetable oil from various restaurants. The latter... I don't know. I did a chemistry (later turned into economics) seminar on the topic of price point of gasoline before ethanol made sense. It was a couple of dollars per gallon, US. This was in 1996.
Boy, sounds like an impressive comment, but I'll be damned if I see much useful info in it. Sorry:)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The smell your car would give off as exhaust would probably boost McDonalds sales through the roof!
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
Having worked with the development of high-pressure direct-injection diesel engines at both Volkswagen and Volvo, I am quite critical towards any replacement fuel that has not been widely and thoroughly tested.
To begin with, some links for self study:
- Dieselnet.com has a great glossary and provides some excellent links
- Delphi has some nice PDF's on Unit Injectors and Common Rail
- Here some information from Bosch - Siemens has some nice pictures of injection systems, mainly common rail
Due to the very high pressures (up to 2100 bars) and therefore high temperatures with modern fuel injection systems, you really go to the limit of what diesel fuel can do: You use it simultaneously as fuel, coolant and oil and it takes a good blend to fulfill all these requirements! The chemical formula is important as well as the physical properties. The DOE has a webpage about diesel fuels. Have a look at their online diesel fuel property database and see which properties are essential for characterizing fuel. Other important factors are
- durability
- particles/filtration
- compressability/resistance against cavitation
Not to forget resistance of all sealings etc against the fuel. Think RME and you know why almost everybody in the industry (e.g. SCANIA) only approves blends with max 5% alternative fuels...
Don't get me wrong, but if those fuels are ruining the car, we really can't talk about environmental advantages then, now can we? On the other hand, serious life cycle analysis like this one and field studies will hopefully help to develop cleaner cars. If those are then driven by gas engines, diesel engines or fuel cells... who knows?
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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.
and yet...
There is no "Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!" post.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
In 10 seconds flat I was thinking about the car "Greased Lightning" from "Grease"
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"Lunchlady Doris, have you got any grease?"
"Yes, yes we do..."
"Well then grease me up woman!"
"Okie dokie."
Favourite Simpsons quote, ever.
This signature intentionally has just seven words.
WTF does Dubya have to do with this?
The poster was making a humorous remark about the tie-in between Dubya and big oil and how he would not stand for alternative fuels cutting into oil company profits.
If you really want to promote alternatives then demand earlier introduction of low sulfur fuel. Some more info here and yes, the pretroleum industry is whining about cost increase, while even the car industry is demanding this fuel...
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Be very careful fueling your cars from the local school's fryers. You might not know if that fluid is spoken for.
-Donut
From www.m-w.com's def'n of "atomize"
2 : to reduce to minute particles or to a fine spray
Ever seen a perfume atomizer? It just makes a really fine spray.. doesn't break any chemical bonds. (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
If someone calls your car a grease-bucket, all you'll be able to do is smile.....
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
From the webpage:
The biggest reduction is in CO2 which is not eliminated from the exhaust emissions but the oil plant absorbs as much CO2 in its growing cylce as the oil puts out when it is burned. This creates a balance
Ummmm, excuse me, but where did all the CO2 from burned gasoline originate? In the dinosaurs and the plants that died and became oil. hmmmm....sounds like a balance to me
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
But has anyone considered using this technology to take their home off the grid (if not actually attempt to run a small power plant)? There are some power plants that run off of refuse incinerators, but if a diesel turbine can be modified to run off of biodiesel, then you could kill two birds with one stone...
Has anyone considered the possibility of building a fuel cell along those lines as well? One that you could, say, start with a small fireplace in order to heat the vegetable oil/grease to a vapor state sufficient to combust?
While vehicles aren't the most efficient energy consumers, most homes are considerably worse...
And then there's possibilities for developing nations, to both do away with a large amount of pollution, where even small villages could have electricity with waste products as the fuel (some do this already with methane producing cesspits)... Just retrofitting old diesel generator rigs with a system like this could move a lot of areas into at least the 20th century...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
You missed a couple of cheery facts. First, reserves are measured funny in the oil business. There's a lot of reserves that aren't normally counted because they take $35/barrel to extract and refine. The Canada tar sands fit into that as well as a huge portion of the Venezuela deposits which are very expensive (at todays prices) to refine due to high impurity levels. So your supply curve has a relatively low slope, i.e. at higher prices a lot more oil becomes available, mostly in places with political stability like Canada and the US (I think we've got huge resources in the northern plains states that only become practical at $40/barrel).
Another cheery fact is that there's a lot of oil in Africa and a great deal of it is offshore and accessible without delving too deeply into the corrupt governance that tends to dominate there. So there's an entirely new region
This doesn't change the fact that eventually, it will all get used up and we'll be reduced to the seepage refill rate (you do know that there's growing evidence that fields will often slowly refill, right) but by then we'll likely be able to put out the only large scale practical solar power, orbital stations with microwave transmission down to earth. We've just got to manage the transmission and avoid the resource wars people have been hyperventilating about since the Club of Rome.
Finally about those chinese in the PRC. The PRC has a ~30% unemployment rate (150 million surplus agricultural workers plus ~70 million urban unemployed out of a 700 million strong labor force) and nobody knows how many millions more working in SOE's that consume more than they produce and have to be closed down before the PRC can seriously aspire to 1st world status. I wouldn't be too concerned about them hitting 1st world desires in the next 20 years, not without a civil war or two in the meantime anyway. This last point isn't really good news but it does shoot your apocalyptic scenario all to hell.
Finally, I would say that you *should* get backup systems, gardening is healthy and the food's great and well water is useful for lawn use in normal times and can be cheaper than buying centrally. I just think your reasoning why to do it is a bit squirrly.
Some smaller shops still toss their old grease, but for at least four decades it's been standard for restaurants to save old cooking grease in 55 gallon barrels, which are picked up regularly by a service, who then sells the used cooking grease to various manufacturers. It's made into pet food, livestock feed, fertilizer, plastics, industrial chemicals, and so forth. Cooking oil is mainly long-chain carbon compounds, somewhat akin to petroleum, so it stands to reason that it can be used in many similar ways.
Fact is, there is very little surplus cooking oil (which includes both animal and vegetable fats -- the main practical difference is that most veg.fats are liquid at room temperature, thus don't require heating to get 'em to flow in a pipe).
Fresh cooking oil wholesales for about $3 per gallon, because it's relatively expensive to produce and is in high demand. Unprocessed scrap animal fat (such as butcher shop trimmings) wholesales for about 8 cents a pound, so I'd guess used cooking oil (which is sold to the same manufacturing market) sells for about the same price.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
That only happens if there's no local grease dealer -- restaurants still need to get rid of used grease. Normally restaurants get 2-3 cents a pound for the used oil, and the guy who picks it up resells it at whatever the current commodity price is (I'd guess presently around 8 cents a pound, tho it's been as high as 24 cents/lb.)
:)
And the reason it's classed as it is, is because cooking oil can contaminate the ground very similarly to how motor oil does. It's not exactly "toxic" but in large quantities it renders soil unfit for cultivation, and runoff can contaminate water supplies and clog water treatment filters. Remember, it floats on top of water just like motor oil does, and tastes just about as good.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
For a while, in some states, ethanol was exempt from some highway taxes, to equalise the price (otherwise it was much more expensive than regular gasoline) so people would buy more of it. I don't know if the same is being applied to other alternative fuels.
BTW, back when ethanol was first being pushed, some people burned up their engines using it, because it makes an unmodified engine run hotter than it does with regular gasoline (similar to if you ran the gas mix way too lean).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?