Boycott BP Solar.

[Sunking]

And don't use food crops to produce ethanol either.

Amen brother

Ethanol has a negative net energy gain.

[garybeck]

Yeah I wasted my time on that a few years back. But now all the restaurants caught on and now charge for the waste oil so that by the time you clean it up it cost more than dino diesel. The oil now goes to the highest bidder.

It's not a waste of time. I've had three vehicles that drive on vegetable oil. A 35 foot bus, a 1985 mercedes, and a 2003 Jetta. It's not a waste of time. I get my oil for free but I'm not doing it for the money. Waste vegetable oil doesn't contain fossil fuels and is carbon neutral. It's locally produced. It's a waste product too, so it's a form of recycling.

I live in an area where many people are competing to get free waste oil but if you try hard you can still find it. I think in just about any place you can find it. Large cities are oozing with waste vegetable oil and many restaurants still pay to have it collected. Right now I have more than I need and I know several people with hundreds of gallons who would share.

If you think it costs more to run on vegetable oil than dino diesel, maybe you need to put new batteries in your calculator. Even if you pay $1 for the dirty oil, there is virtually no cost to clean it up. I don't know about you but I'm seeing dino diesel for $4 gal at the pump. Are you saying it costs you $3 to clean up a gallon of dirty vegetable oil? Something's not right there.

If anyone is coming through the burlington VT area and you need some free fuel for your veggie car, just drop me a line. Happy to share some cost-free, fossil-fuel free, good smelling fuel.

It's not a waste of time. There are still millions of gallons of waste oil being improperly disposed of, or collected and used by rendering plants every year, that could instead be offsetting the use of greenhouse gas causing fossil fuels.

Cheers.

[garybeck]

Biodiesel may still make sense if you have enough agricultural waste of your own to make it from. But not restaurant oil diesel.

Obviously you have never tried it. It makes great sense to use waste restaurant oil for fuel. I've been doing it for years and it works great. Why pour a waste product down the drain or send it to the rendering plant when you can offset the use of fossil fuels instead and save money at the same time?

[russ]

Obviously you have never tried it. It makes great sense to use waste restaurant oil for fuel. I've been doing it for years and it works great. Why pour a waste product down the drain or send it to the rendering plant when you can offset the use of fossil fuels instead and save money at the same time?

It is one of those green things where all of us are supposed to say how great it is.

In reality the amount of dino saved is exceeding small and it makes no difference.

[Mike90250]

Do you process it into bio-diesel, or simply filter and heat to thin it ? Bio-diesel or grease car ? nothing wrong with either, as far as I'm concerned. I've got a tractor that will need fuel, but it's newer and won't feed WVO, has to be processed into bio-diesel.

[inetdog]

It is one of those green things where all of us are supposed to say how great it is.

In reality the amount of dino saved is exceeding small and it makes no difference.

The biggest problem with it is that is does not scale well. As long as only a limited number do it, the results are good but the effect small. The potential benefit is strictly limited. But it may give a push to other renewable fuel source engines.

[Sunking]

If you think it costs more to run on vegetable oil than dino diesel, maybe you need to put new batteries in your calculator.

Nno my batteries are just fine. In TX waste veg oil sells for $3/gal up to $3.5/gal. By the time you filter it add the chemicals (lye) wash it and clean the end product is around $5/gal or more. That is why biodiesel plants folded and collapsed, they cannot compete.

[garybeck]

It is one of those green things where all of us are supposed to say how great it is.

In reality the amount of dino saved is exceeding small and it makes no difference.

If we had that attitude we might as well give up on trying to make the world a better place. The truth is, every little thing that everyone does makes a difference. It all adds up. And sometimes just setting an example opens other people's minds.

[garybeck]

Nno my batteries are just fine. In TX waste veg oil sells for $3/gal up to $3.5/gal. By the time you filter it add the chemicals (lye) wash it and clean the end product is around $5/gal or more. That is why biodiesel plants folded and collapsed, they cannot compete.

OK obviously you haven't been reading what I said. I don't make biodiesel. I use straight vegetable oil, just like Rudolph Diesel intended.

If people are charging $3/gal for waste vegetable oil, it's a rip off. I guarantee you could make some phone calls to local restaurants and get it for free or much cheaper than that.

Anyway, personally I'm not in it for the money. If the cost is in the same ballpark and I can drive my car without fossil fuels, I'm all for it.

cheers

[garybeck]

The biggest problem with it is that is does not scale well. As long as only a limited number do it, the results are good but the effect small. The potential benefit is strictly limited. But it may give a push to other renewable fuel source engines.

You are essentially correct if you are talking about waste vegetable oil. HOWEVER, still today millions of gallons of waste vegetable oil are being poured down drains or sent to rendering plants when it could be used to offset fossil fuel use. Before we start saying what little impact it could have, we should be using every drop of waste vegetable oil. Then and only then should we be saying it's not enough.

The longterm answer is to create a new crop of algae that doesn't compete with food crops and can supply the billions of gallons of fuel we need. The math is there; it's possible. That little algae bugger is quite efficient at making oil that's just as good as what we dig out of the ground.

[garybeck]

Do you process it into bio-diesel, or simply filter and heat to thin it ? Bio-diesel or grease car ? nothing wrong with either, as far as I'm concerned. I've got a tractor that will need fuel, but it's newer and won't feed WVO, has to be processed into bio-diesel.

I use straight vegetable oil. I find it much simpler to do a one-time modification to my engine and then only have to mechanically filter the oil, compared to having to continually process every gallon of oil I receive chemically. More cost, more time, more hassle, more chemicals.

cheers

[Sunking]

Gary I respect your POV but what you believe in is not even a NICHE market.

If you were to convert all the arable land on the face of EARTH to grow feed stock crops for veg oil, including your lawn and land, Biodiesel would only supply about 15 to 25% of the world demand for vehicle fuel.

What would you eat?

[russ]

If we had that attitude we might as well give up on trying to make the world a better place. The truth is, every little thing that everyone does makes a difference. It all adds up. And sometimes just setting an example opens other people's minds.

I am not saying 'give up' - I am simply saying that this is one of the airhead green things that mankes no difference.

Set examples all you want but don't expect others to be impressed by your actions.

Collecting the vegetable oil has it's own cost which you guys never consider - You added the 'having to add more chemicals' kicker - one of the strange green concerns.

It is a thing for individuals - not a commercial activity.

[bidaw]

I have no idea how I missed this thread. I have been using WVO for a little over a year now, and I can't see how I wasn't doing it sooner. A buddy of mine was trying to get me to go in with him to produce Bio Diesel, but when I went looking for a diesel car, I found one with an Elsbett single tank WVO kit already built in. It was a 93 Mercedes 300D. The guy sold it to me real cheap because he thought he fouled up the engine because he was having starting problems. After money exchanged hands, I found out that he had excessive air in the fuel system (probably after a filter change). Great deal, and no need to do bio diesel now. After about 6 months and logging several thousand miles on pure grease...I started looking for other diesel cars for conversion candidates. I have since purchased 2 VW Jetta's both TDI's. A 1998 and a 2005.5. I built my own kit for the 98 and it is a two tank system that runs great!!! I am giving the 05.5 a nice rest before I pull the trigger on that one.

I get grease locally about 100-150 gallons a week from a couple different suppliers. I clean and dewater the WVO with a centrifuge that has inline heat. Right now after consumption, I am sitting on 880-1000 gallons of clean grease to put in the cars at any given time.

I also have a Chinese Diesel generator, 6500w silent running one that has also been converted to run with wvo. This has helped immensely with Sandy rolling thru knocking out power. Clouds have kept the sky overcast, so my solar batt backup has been topped off with grease (via genset) as well.

My next project for the WVO is to convert a diesel/kerosene floor furnace to burn it in a drip feed environment. It's for my garage, but at a 75,000 btu rating (I know it'll be less) it should sweat me outside this winter, or at least make me open the bay doors!

For me, it wasn't about the money savings (even though I have definately saved from the pump), but as for most of us...just to do something cool! BTW, my buddy gave up on Bio Diesel for now and has converted his 91 Mercedes 300d to WVO as well.

[Beanyboy57]

Idealist have a hard row to hoe here.

There is no shortage of people that are thinking like you are.
If you want a paradigm shift, stick with the masses.
Spending your time arguing with people that might have a vested interest isn't even fun.

Who wants to bet gas prices will rise significantly within the next three months, ......or after BP manages to get rid of the bad press.

As an observer who has lived in Europe for some time and now lives in Australia, I feel slightly bemused by most of the comments in this post. For years everyone in Europe and the UK laughed at the ridiculous size of American cars or 'Yank Tanks' as they are commonly known. When I traveled the USA in 2005 I was amazed at the size of the gas guzzling vehicles you choose to clog up your roads with. Now you are all jumping on the band wagon about this very serious issues of pollution but yet you don't give a damn about being the highest carbon emitter in the world, or about driving huge vehicles that are not fuel efficient. You also pay half the price for fuel that the rest of the world pays, perhaps that's why your country is in hock to rest of the world. Don't get me wrong, I love the USA and have a few great pals there but honestly shouldn't you all be trying to make a difference by being more individually environmentally friendly, after all that's what this site is intended for!