“… the whole bloody town smells like bloody fish and chips…” it was one of those statements overheard from an older British guy with the voice of Sean Connery; how can you not turn around and listen to what else the guy has to say? I was quickly introduced to practical bio-diesel.
The short of it is that you can feed a diesel engine cooked vegetable oil and drive away. Minor modifications are necessarily- around $200 worth of equipment and a source of new or used vegetable oil. Sounds too good to be true? As with everything, there are some drawbacks, this isn’t a perfected science, especially in the US where bio-diesel brings about visions of steroid pumping muscle heads dressed like Italian post-mod hipsters.
How does it work?
- Diesel is a denser version of gasoline. It provides better fuel economy but diesel engines produce more emissions
- Vegetable oil works because it has similar fuel properties to diesel
- You’ll need a kit that will heat the oil prior to pumping it into the engine. Also remember to filter out all the food remains. There are more details here, but I’m too lazy to research and list them all.
- Improper implementation will bust your engine. Talk to someone that’s done it before.
- Resources:
-- http://www.greasecar.com/
-- http://www.kenneke.com/veggie.html
-- http://www.noendpress.com/caleb/biodiesel/index.php
So, keep a lookout for cars with “runs on vegetable oil” sticker. I saw one on a car in Brooklyn a few months ago and wondered what they had to do to get it to work. It took a drunk bloke to answer the question.