By Tim Knauss Staff writer - The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)As soon as Joe Cummins learned that a diesel car could be modified to run on a restaurant's used vegetable oil, he just had to have one.
"It made so much sense," he said.
For one thing, vegetable oil produces less air pollution than petroleum diesel. And it's a renewable fuel, which helps reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But for crying out loud, don't overlook the obvious: The stuff is free. >Link
To fuel his 2002 Volkswagen Golf, Cummins picks up 5-gallon containers of waste vegetable oil from the ABC Cafe in Ithaca, near where he lives. He strains it through a filter into a barrel in his basement and - voila! - motor fuel.
"The minute I saw that a car could run on vegetable oil that you got for free, I knew I had to do it," he said.
Interest in veggie cars, as they are sometimes known, has been slowly growing during the past couple years among back-yard tinkerers and Green Party types, but there still aren't many such vehicles on the road.
Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems, of Florence, Mass., which manufactures the conversion kit in Cummins' car, has sold just 400 since its inception in 2001. Its primary competitor, 3-year-old Greasel Conversions, of Drury, Mo., reports sales of about 2,000 kits.
But if gasoline prices keep rising, Cummins might soon have plenty of company. "We're absolutely just buried" with recent orders, said Charlie Anderson, founder of Greasel.
For help making his car run on vegetable oil, Cummins turned to Seth Mead, 27, a high school science teacher and the founder of Liquid Solar Inc., a veggie car company in Ithaca.
Mead has degrees in natural resources and teaching from Cornell University, but no background in mechanics or engineering. Nevertheless, the first time he saw a car converted to burn vegetable oil, it brought out the tinkerer in him.
"I thought, "I could do that,"' he said.
Two years ago, Mead installed a second fuel tank and a second set of fuel lines in his Ford F-250 pickup truck so that, as soon as the truck warms up on regular diesel fuel, Mead flips a switch and it starts burning vegetable oil.
In the two years since then, Mead has installed Greasecar kits in a dozen cars around Ithaca. His business partner, Scott Hannan, has converted a dozen others.
As interest grew, they sensed a business opportunity. Six months ago, they founded Liquid Solar Inc.
In addition to converting cars to run on vegetable oil, they are preparing to launch a business selling waste oil to people who don't want to collect their own from restaurants.
Perfecting filter technique
Mead is working with Cornell University engineering students to perfect techniques for filtering the waste oil, and he says he has an agreement with a local store to sell the oil in 5-gallon containers. Mead hopes to begin the fuel sales by the end of summer.
Liquid Solar is the only company in New York that installs Greasecar systems, according to Greasecar founder Justin Carven.
Here's the arrangement: The customer buys a conversion kit from Greasecar for about $800. Mead and Hannan charge $40 an hour to install it, which usually takes 12 to 15 hours, for a bill of about $500 to $600.
With gas and diesel prices near $2 a gallon, it would take 650 to 700 gallons to pay for the conversion - just over a year's worth of driving for the average consumer.
The risk for car owners like Cummins, whose vehicle is still under warranty, is that car manufacturers typically void warranties when the fuel system is modified. Whether dealers honor warranties for components unrelated to the fuel system may depend on the dealer, Mead said.
Must heat the oil first
What's involved in the conversion?
To explain, Mead opened the hatchback on Cummins' Golf. In the well intended for a spare tire sat a cylindrical 15-gallon fuel tank. Lines from the tank run under the car to the engine.
The fuel lines leading to and from the vegetable fuel tank are bundled with other lines carrying hot engine coolant. The hot fluid heats the veggie oil to reduce viscosity, the key to making it ready for the engine.
"The rest of it is all switches and electronics," Mead said.
Mead jumps into the car to show how it works. He starts it under diesel power to give the veggie oil time to heat up. He drives around the corner from his house and heads for Route 13. About a minute after starting the car, while accelerating up a hill on 13, he hits a switch on the dashboard and switches to veggie oil.
There is no difference.
"As you can see, the car functions just like it's supposed to," he said.
After driving awhile, he heads back to his house. At the curb, Mead lets the car idle for about 30 seconds in diesel mode to cycle the vegetable oil out of the engine. Then he shuts the car off.
Simple enough, but will the motoring masses cotton to vegetable oil?
Jenna Higgins, of the National Biodiesel Board, doesn't think so. Few are as dismissive of "straight vegetable oil" aficionados as their cousins in the renewable fuel business, the biodiesel industry.
"People using straight veg-oil and promoting it give us heartburn," said Higgins, whose group represents biodiesel refiners. "We worry about there being confusion over straight veg-oil versus biodiesel."
One key difference is this: Straight vegetable oil is still grass roots. Biodiesel is becoming big business.
Chemically, the difference is this: Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil - usually soybean oil - but alcohol and lye are added to separate out glycerin, the stuff that makes oil thick and sticky. That's why biodiesel doesn't have to be heated before use; it can be used in conventional diesel engines without modification.
Biodiesel is usually blended with 80 percent petroleum diesel to achieve a mixture called B20. Even B100, or 100 percent biodiesel, can be used in most diesel engines without any modification.
Production of biodiesel has increased from 500,000 gallons in 1999 to 25 million in 2003, Higgins said.
Biodiesel is far from free. B20 typically costs about 20 cents a gallon more than diesel; B100 costs about $1 more.
Biodiesel must meet standards set by the American Society for Testing and Materials. It is recognized as a motor fuel by the Environmental Protection Agency. Every gallon can be expected to be the same.
Perfecting the process
That cannot be said for veggie oil, the quality of which varies depending on the source and how well it is strained.
Mead said he is working with Cornell students on perfecting Liquid Solar's refining process for recycled veggie oil to ensure consistent high quality.
The case for straight veggie oil is not far-fetched, says Carven, 27, whose Greasecar company evolved out of his senior project as a mechanical design student at Hampshire College. After all, he said, Rudolph Diesel ran his first engine on peanut oil.
Carven said veggie cars are a grass-roots response to the lack of innovation from the automobile and petroleum industries. He contrasted the homegrown research into veggie cars, which already work, with the millions that big industry is pouring into hydrogen fuel cell cars, which face major technological hurdles.
"We're just trying to make it available to conscious individuals who are looking for an alternative and are sick of waiting around for one to be handed to them," Carven said. "Major auto manufacturers are not going to get behind this unless infrastructure was created and money could be made."
Should veggie oil be taxed?
The notion of recycling restaurant oil to power a car is so new that arguments rage over whether it should be taxed.
Mead argues that since EPA doesn't recognize veggie oil as a motor fuel, it might be exempt from the state and federal excise taxes on diesel and gasoline that are collected at the pump. Those taxes add about 41 cents a gallon.
Tom Bergin, speaking for the state tax department, disagreed. Although he couldn't be definitive, Bergin said he thinks Mead will have to charge both sales and excise taxes when he starts selling waste oil as motor fuel.
"This is all kind of fluffy," Mead said. "There are really no hard (rules). If we force the issue, great. It'll give us more legitimacy, and then we can move on."
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The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)