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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."
I've heard it makes your car exhaust smell like french fries ... Not that there's anything wrong with that ...
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.
Have these people seen the crap-for-oil that comes out of most restaurants? That stuff is fully oxidized, saturated with carbon, mixed with salt, and diluted by water! How anyone could expect it to clean anything is beyond me.
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Don't be too surprised if you find a line on the 2004 state and federal tax return to declare the amount of fuel you brewed so that they can assess back road taxes.
But it really can't be a solution for everybody, can it? First of all not everyone has access to a restaurant to get used cooking oil, and last I checked, cooking oil is more expensive at the grocery store than gasoline (I guess it depends on where you live).
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Biodiesel is cleaner in every respect except that it generates more NOx. NOx and particulates are the primary pollution problems with diesel engines in general, though the industry is making progress. Also, of course, the "free oil from the restaurant next door" solution won't scale, and will probably only last until some entrepreneur starts buying restaurant oil and reselling it to biodiesel manufacturers. That said, the fact that this closes the carbon loop is a huge win, not to mention the potential for energy independence.
Does it take into account fuel taxes? As far as I know, even if you make your own fuel, you're still liable for paying the road use tax that is normally incorporated into the price at the pump.
Yeah, now that Mercedes has released it's new E Class with a CDI diesel engine you can have your cake and eat it too. Luxury, performance and fuel economy. With 369 lbft. of torque at 1,800 rpm it probably has better than average acceleration for a 4,000 pound car. Even if you don't use biodiesel this is a great fuel saver for luxury car buyers with 37 mpg highway and in the high twenties in the city.
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http://www.edmunds.com/new/2004/mercedesbenz/ec
And you know what they use to control emissions in the US market with higher sulpher content fuels. A urea injection system... That's right... Urea is sprayed into the mix with fuel and air.
Even regular diesel fuel engines have trouble in freezing temperatures. Most diesel owners that live in cold weather climates have to plug the car into an electric heater at night if they want their cars to start on a winter morning. Of course there are also plenty of garage fires caused by people who installed the engine heaters incorrectly.
Actually it sorta does when you get almost double the mileage for the same price.
Then you need an:
a.) Filtering system.
b.) Luck.
It would be interesting to test the effectiveness of conventional diesl car/truck filters.
Also, note:
2007 Toyota will be releasing a full sized 200+ HP hybrid diesel electric Tundra.
Sounds like a shoein for the biodeisel market:) I just hope it comes with a stick shift.
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First, the amount of land required to grow enough oil for all the cars currently operating has been estimated to be about the same amount of land contained in the continental US, and I believe there are a couple of other uses people had in mind for that land too. I've seen similar estimates for the UK fleet vs. UK landmass.
Second, our current style of agri-business uses large quantities of fossil fuels in the production of crops. Fertilizers, herbicides, and pestidcides are all produced using fossil fuels, and actually require more than a gallon of oil input to generate a gallon of vegetable oil. This isn't really a problem if you're using oil that was already purchased by McDonalds since the oil would have been produced and consumed anyway, but producing biodiesel as the primary aim of the operation is simply counter-productive. Unless you're buying organic biodiesel, and let's face it, there's only so much manure to go around.
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Remember that while the addage, "if everyone drove these cars, the price of these cars fuel would skyrocket" is true, it ignorse the fact that by having easily substitable goods, you change the price elasticity of demand. Coke and Pepsi share similar prices because Coke knows that if they double their prices, people will just buy Pepsi.
:)
So while there might be a bit of an increase in the price of diesel or biodiesel, the price of gasoline would be affected as well because we would consume less of it. The more alternatives you have for an activity, the more in touch with reality their pricing is. Take CDs -- their pricing should be dropping because DVDs and video games are (bang for the buck) much more effective. However, because the RIAA is ignorant, they're trying to use price fixing. Naturally, this isn't working as the price elasticity for that good has been increasing in the past few years
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True, diesel may be making a comeback in the U.S., but not so in California (unless you count pickup trucks).
I was in the market for a new car a few months ago and (after renting one in Germany) was very interested in a Volkswagen Jetta. I saw the Volkswagen offered a TDI (turbo-diesel injection) model which had more horsepower, better gas-mileage and lower emissions than the standard unleaded gasoline engine. However, for some unknown reason, the TDI model is not approved for sale or import into California,
Upon further research, I've found some BMW and Mercedes-Benz models that offer diesel engines (also with lower emissions and better mileage than their unleaded counterparts) that are available for sale in the U.S., but not in California.
It strikes me as very odd that in a state as liberal and environmentally minded as California, a lower emission engine isn't available in these cars. My guess is that some old-timer remembers the diesels that belched black smoke all day and doesn't realize how many advances have been made in diesel engines.
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Some used cooking oil does get filtered and shipped abroad for use in food products. But most places I know (including mcd, bk, kfc etc) still have to arrange to have it hauled off and the best they can manage so far is to break even.
i think he was refering to the filter used when producing bio-diesel.
biodiesel is routienely stored in plastic containers made of (i think) PETE and all diesel engines in production today are designed to accept bio-diesel by using teflon (instead of rubber) hoses. the main engine concern about using biodiesel is the sodium hydroxide (lye) content of the fuel which can destroy rubber parts.
when you make biodiesel you wash the fuel with water by misting water into a vat of fuel. the water collects lye as it decends to the bottom of the tank where it is drained out.
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Multi-weight engine oil (e.g. 5W30) is made that way by the addition of polymers that cause the oil to act like the lower weight (5W) when cold and like the higher oil weight (30W) when hot, to provide the best protection at both operating temperature extremes. Over time, contamination and heat break down those modifiers so that the oil is more like the lower weight. That is why frequent oil changes are useful.
With Synthetics, the same is not true, however, all oils end up getting contaminated with by-products of combustion, and the additives become depleted, making it time for fresh oil.
You're missing an important point: you are taking the carbon out of the ground and putting it into our atmosphere.
Err. No. You're taking it out of the atmosphere and putting it back in the atmosphere. It's called photosynthesis. That's why plants keep their leaves out in the air, rather than under the ground.