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Brew Your Own Auto Fuel For 41 Cents A Gallon
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Damon Toal-Rossi of Iowa City, Iowa had enough of the high price of gasoline, so it didn't take too much for his friend to talk him into switching to biodiesel, an alternative fuel based on soy or vegetable oil. But after a few months of driving 10 miles to a biodiesel fuel station he decided it was time to start brewing his own. It didn't take him long to find a recipe for biodiesel, and with used cooking oil that he gets for free from a nearby restaurant, he figures he's now getting 44 miles per gallon out of his diesel powered VW Golf and only paying 41 cents a gallon. According to the National Biodiesel Board the number of biodiesel stations in the US rose by 50% last year (to a whopping 200). The president of the American Soybean Association claims biodiesel has almost the same amount of energy as petroleum-based diesel, but cleans an engine's fuel injectors and cuts down on the number of required oil changes. Perhaps these are some of the reasons why diesel powered cars are making a comeback in the US."
Sounds like a fun project though. The warnings about the various poisons certainly got my attention.
sulli
RTFJ.
Actually, getting free used oil is easier than you think owing to:
a) Any restaurant that does frying has used oil. (Even that mom'n'pop boutique place you like to frequent)
b) Restaurants normally have to pay someone to have their used oil hauled away.
People are not starving because there is not enough food in the world, but because in too many places the distribution system is not very efficient, or is actively perverted by armies, dictators, and other autocrats. If we can find a way to use inexpensive, renewable plant matter to generate energy, it will ultimately improve the lives of people all over the world, especially in those places too poor to buy oil right noww.
Bingo, it's great while there are only a half dozen people who try it per town. As soon as more than one person goes and asks an owner for their used oil guess what? No more free used oil. Crude oil prices are what they are because it's a traded commodity, not because it's hard to get or difficult to refine. What people are willing to pay is what dictates the price, not the threat of running out.
Create a demand and like everything else, prices will rise.
Not that I'm totally against the idea, but you can't base the impact on a real economy on a test case of a few people here and there.
Yes, but if everyone in America were to convert to using biodiesel, then there'd be an impetus to make it commercially on a large scale. Essentially, we'd have farms producing either vegetable or soy oil for use as fuel. You can make biodiesel out of fresh oil even easier than out of used oil.
If *anything* changed step-function-wise to 50% it would be a problem.
Most of the biodiesel in use today in the US is not from used vegetable oil - it's from new soybean (and other seed) oil. Put the American farmer back into the energy loop growing soybeans and take foreign oil sources out - how is that a "bad solution"?
No, not really. It has more to do with skyrocketing gasoline costs and the fact that TDI technology is miles above the old diesels. It's quieter, more efficient, more powerful, the blocks are lighter thanks to superior materials, and TDI isn't nearly as sensitive to the cold- it doesn't even need the glowplugs above 40 or so degrees. The glowplug system is tied into the central locking, so when you approach the car and unlock the doors, it figures out if it's cold enough to need the glowplugs and starts warming them; as a result, the car's ready to go before you are, most of the time. Diesel is also much more prevalent now that there are a lot more diesels in pickups, vans, etc used by small businesses and non-fleet operators.
That addresses many of the concerns the public had about diesel- hard to find fuel, noisy, heavy, and a bitch in the cold.
A lot of people get hybrids wrong too, thinking it's all the hippies buying them. Dealers say that was true initially, now it's just regular commuters who want the most efficient car. Biodiesel is a boutique fuel aside from use in fleets in 2% mixes to replace sulfur in low-sulfur fuels.
Please help metamoderate.