California's NorthStar Moving Corporation has just converted all of its trucks to run on biodiesel fuel. All of the fuel used by the moving and storage company will now be veggie-based. Additionally, their fleet of vehicles has also been fitted with battery-powered rear lift gates as opposed to hydraulic, meaning that the engine does not need to idle for extended periods.

NorthStar reportedly has tried greening other aspects of their operation. All of their boxes and stationery are made from recycled material and are reused when possible. The company claims that skylights and windows are used for natural lighting when possible and their warehouses are well-insulated. We applaud these efforts, of course, especially the use of biodiesel. With diesel prices as high as they are, we wonder what impact biodiesel may have on the market, considering that cost is often a driving factor when it comes to our energy needs.

If you are reading our site, you are probably already familiar with the fact that any diesel vehicle can run on biodiesel. As a matter of fact, most any can diesel vehicle can even run on used vegetable oil with just a few modifications. There are some issues with vegetable oil which must first be addressed, one of which is keeping the fuel warm. What many conversion vehicles do to remedy this situation is to heat the vegetable oil and starting the vehicle with regular diesel fuel. A few other modifications are generally made to the fuel system to filter the veggie oil before it gets to the combustion chambers. How would you go about performing these operations? Check out this Instructable for directions on how a conversion was done on an older school bus. A few drums were strapped under the bus with the middle one being preheated before sending fuel to the engine. Check out the mad-max style photo above for a glimpse into this conversion.

Don't have a veggie oil conversion but still want to use heat from your engine for something useful? How about for cooking... click here.

[Source: Instructables]

The video above is Grease Car's Mini at AltWheels Boston 2007. The Mini is lime green and converted to run on vegetable oil. The diesel engine they put in the Mini was a little big, so the front of the Mini has an odd look with the tires slightly pushed out. The Mini was in a sidewalk booth but the organizers later had it moved it to the center of the show where more people could see it. Smart move, as the Mini was one of the cooler cars at the show.

The video also includes a look at a device Grease Car sells called the Co-Pilot. Usually, if you want to use vegetable oil effectively in your conversion, you must first heat the oil with the diesel engine's coolant. You can watch the coolant temperature yourself, then use a toggle switch to send vegetable oil instead of diesel to the engine. The Co-Pilot takes care of all that for you by watching coolant temperature and automatically switching the fuel lines.

As many people are aware, gasoline is taxed in an effort to pay for the nations roadways. Here in the U.S., we enjoy the freedom of being able to travel from one end of the country to the other with relative ease, and the system of highways and roadways that makes it possible obviously costs money. It seems that there are certain people who want to use the roadways without being required to support them, however, and for these people laws exist as a punishment for evading gas taxes.

Recently, a problem has been cropping up: alternative fuel users are being lumped into the same category as those who are willfully attempting to evade the gas tax. This is an understandable problem, of course. States want to get the money that they require to repair and maintain the roadways, and by using vegetable oil or waste vegetable oil instead of petroleum based diesel fuel, the tax-man is not getting his due. The question being posed in this article, as I see it, is this: should alternative fuel users be penalized or fined for not realizing they are breaking the law?

One one hand, ignorance is not a valid excuse for breaking the law. On the other hand, in a society where states themselves are encouraging alternative fuels and the president himself is advocating their use, should it be a punishable offense to use those fuels?

[Source: The Charlotte Observer]

So, they've made ads that are dumb, and possibly even offensive, depending on who you ask, and they just opened their first B20 station recently. But San Francisco is really putting some effort into greening their city. The newest evidence of this fact is that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) will be collecting much of the city's waste vegetable oil (WVO) and using it as a base to create biodiesel. This biodiesel will then be used in a B20 blend to power the city's bus fleet.

This could be a big environmental and economic benefit. To wit: "SFPUC official Lewis Harrison stated that at least 1 million gallons of biodiesel could be produced from left-over restaurant grease, which is "more than enough" to run the city's entire bus fleet on B20. Since WVO is a waste stream, offsetting petro-diesel usage with WVO biodiesel is particularly advantageous: the use of 1 million gallons of WVO-biodiesel would offset 19,600,000 lbs (9,800 tons) of carbon dioxide emissions each year. It also has significant economic and public health benefits: municipal biodiesel production should beat the $4/gallon price of fuel in San Francisco, and B20 biodiesel blends cut diesel soot emissions by 20-40%."

This quote was taken from an article on Green Options. Click here to check it out.

[Source: Green Options]

In this video, a young woman describes the process that AppstateBiofuels is using to "close the loop" on biofuel production. What that means is that they want their operation completely self-contained. They are using solar power for electricity and hot water generation, and the water used in the biodiesel creation process is reclaimed using a variety of ecological methods in their onsite greenhouse. On days when there is not enough sun, they use a generator powered by their very own biodiesel. Sounds pretty good! I thought that this looked like some sort of University project, so I did a little searching and dug up their site. According to their site:

"The Collaborative Biodiesel Project is a student-led initiative at Appalachian State University and is partially funded by the EPA P3 Award: Student Design Competition for Sustainability. The purpose of the project is to create a closed loop biodiesel processing facility that provides for its own energy needs, and recycles its waste products. We have examined all aspects of the process in order to find sustainable ways to close the biodiesel loop. Our mission is to create a sustainable biodiesel processor model that can be easily replicated by others."

Check them out, and follow their process from start to finish. They do a good job of explaining exactly what it is that they are doing.

[Source: Youtube and Appalachian State University]

"It's cheaper than regular gas, but that's not the point." No, it's not... but it could help make it easier to make the switch. These commercials for Lovecraft Biofuels highlight a few people who have done conversions on their diesel-powered automobiles to run on biofuels. In one memorable shot, an attractive young lady dumps vegetable oil into her tank, then onto her salad which she proceeds to eat. Another man says that his car "smells like Thai food", which is "good, unless you're hungry."

I think these commercials are well done, and they make the idea of running your car on clean fuels memorable. I'm also sure that it was no accident that young, attractive people were chosen as the spokespeople. Willie is a good spokesperson too, don't get me wrong, but marketing is marketing, after all.

See the other commercial and a clip from ABC news about Lovecraft after the break.

[Source: Youtube via Hugg.com]