It's no secret to the majority of our readers that it is possible to run many older diesel engines on nothing more than straight vegetable oil. In fact, the first diesel engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel, ran on peanut oil. This fact is also well known by the students at the Michigan Technical Academy who have converted their own school buses to run on waste vegetable oil. Garden Fresh Foods in Ferndale, Michigan is providing used veggie oil that was first used to fry tortilla chips for no charge. The total cost of the fuel for the two buses that are running on 100-percent veggie oil is estimated at about 80-cents a gallon. Other buses are running on a 10-percent blend of oil and diesel fuel. As the temps in Michigan go down, the blend will be adjusted, though the students are currently hard at work solving that problem with heaters. Great work.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Click on the image for high-res shots of this diesel 1967 Mercury Cougar

Much of the vegetable oil and biodiesel movement centers around the classic Mercedes-Benz inline six cylinder engine, but fine examples of the genre are getting tougher to find. As is always the case with older machines, time and driving in general take their toll on the bodies and chassis of our favorite classics. But, these old Mercedes lumps can be rebuilt to fine running order. Wondering what to do with that good-running or rebuilt turbodiesel engine? How about dropping it into the engine bay of some classic Detroit iron? Many of these older American vehicles were built with engine-bays capable of accepting everything from a straight-six to a huge big block V8 engine. If that sounds like too much trouble, perhaps you should take a look at an example that's already been converted. Right now on Craigslist in L.A. is a cherry 1967 Mercury Cougar with a Mercedes OM617 cast iron turbodiesel engine from a Mercedes-Benz 300SD. Mated to a four-speed manual tranny, we'd imagine that many trouble-free miles of burbling diesel goodness are in store for this particular gem. Thanks for the tip, Geeky1!


[Source: Craigslist]

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]

In many places around the world, roads are financed at least in part by a tax added to the price of fuel. When we head to the pumps, we pay for a little bit of the road we drive out onto as we leave the station. But people who make their own biofuels don't pay these taxes and yet they drive on roads other people pay for. To make sure the load is balanced out a bit, many governments tax biofuels whether they are home-brewed or purchased. To get an idea of how this plays out in Alaska, check out this post over at Arctic Vegwerks.

The system for collecting waste oil or biodiesel taxes ($0.08/gallon state and $0.244/gallon federal) in Alaska starts like this:

The user must submit their Alaska Motor Fuel Tax on a monthly basis. Yeah, the tax office would really prefer it wasn't so often, but it's written into law. Seems like they would lose money processing a whole bunch of $5 checks every month! Some states exempt the first 2500 gallons, and the feds only require quarterly taxes, so lobby your Alaska legislators if you want to improve the law!

Arctic Vegwerks goes on to describe just how to fill out the state paperwork and quotes parts of the law that affect some green drivers up north. Got any good stories of how it affects you where you live?

[Source: Arctic Vegwerks]

The 20th World Solar Challenge took place in Australia in October. One of the more unusual fuel types in the Greenfleet Class of the Darwin to Adelaide race was used by a "Troupy," a lightly modified 1989 Toyota Landcruiser.

According to Pure Energy Systems, the diesel-engined Troupy made the 3,000 kilometer-drive using a fuel called Bios Fuel H2W+, which is 40 percent water and 60 percent waste mineral oil.

Here's how PES describes it:

Bios Fuel claims to have developed a water-based fuel technology that allows hydrogen to be housed safely in water and released on demand for numerous applications. A proprietary catalyst allows water to be suspended in waste oil as an emulsion. The fuel is designed for power generation. It is one of several blends that Bios Fuel has certified to American ASTM standards.

While it is not designed for vehicles, it ran well in the 1989 Toyota Landcruiser Troop Carrier, or "Troupy" as they are affectionately called in the outback. "We thought testing in a harsh environment such as the Australian desert would demonstrate the viability of our fuel beyond doubt, and show that 2nd and 3rd generation waste can be combined with water to provide an energy source", said Bios Fuel founder and CEO Steve Ryan. "Using an old Troupy shows that you don't necessarily have to compromise lifestyle to reduce your effect on the environment".

There is a history of hype surrounding the idea of placing water into a vehicle's fuel tank, but I'll say - for now - that this appears to be legit. NZ Biofuels sent out a press release on the accomplishment and biosfuel.org has a slick PDF on H2W+ (and related fuels). If you've got a critical take on this fuel (or want to sing its praises), please share it with our readers in the comments below. It seems difficult to fake traveling 3,000 km in a media-rich environment like the Panasonic World Solar Challenge, doesn't it?

[Source: Sterling D. Allan / Pure Energy Systems News, h/t to Tim]

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]

Last August, AutoblogGreen feature writer Ray Holan wrote about his adventure in converting a BMW 3 series from the mid-'80s to run on VegOil. In his introduction, he posted four lessons he learned about the process, and lesson #4 (choose your mechanic carefully) is something that Blogging New Orleans writer Matt Robinson is probably reflecting on right now.

Robinson has written a short tale about trying to turn Gracie, his 1980 VW pick-up, into a WVO-machine. Unfortunately for him, the mechanic - who was also converting Robinson's friend's Mercedes - decided to attend an anarchist convention before finishing the job, and a lot of the work he had done (but not all, thankfully) was shoddy and required serious reworking. The Mercedes never ran again. And all this on top of the Saint's loss yesterday and all the rest New Orleans has been through. Sheeesh.

[Source: Blogging New Orleans]

As of November 3rd, the National VegOil Board (NVOB) is a non-profit operating in California. Ethanol and biodiesel have their national boards and coalitions, so why not vegetable oil (for transportation)? The group's mission is to, "provide education about and support for VegOil as a fuel; to facilitate VegOil discussions and events; to promote VegOil research, analysis and funding." NVOB founder Cynthia Shelton sent out an email recently explaining why there should be another SVO group.

"Obviously interest in alternative fuels has exploded in the past few years," she wrote. "The quantity of information available is overwhelming, confusing, and changing every day. The workload is growing as the field expands and we can avoid duplicating efforts if we cooperate. The NVOB is a chance to organize our facts and speak as a unified group. Education, Promotion, and Research are the keywords but it's more than that."

The group's website is still in the development stages, but it is full of information already. Tips on how to convert your car to WVO, understanding different types of WVO, a speaker's bureau, and more are in the works. I'm sure there'll be more to come.

[Source: NVOB / Cynthia Shelton]

Ed Beggs grew diesel fuel in Ontario on his Canadian farm for years without realizing it. He called it soybeans back then. Today the British Columbia resident knows better. He likes to call it premium diesel fuel. Why the paradigm shift? Because Ed and his U.S. business partner, Craig Reece, operate PlantDrive, one of the premier companies producing Straight Vegetable Oil/Waste Vegetable Oil (SVO/WVO) conversion kits and components for fueling diesel engines with straight plant oil.

Conversion kit is really a misnomer. Auxiliary fuel system is more accurate since the vehicle gets an additional fuel line and fuel tank. The modified vehicle totes plant oil in a second tank (the stock diesel fuel tank is untouched in most systems) and the auxiliary fuel system is heated while the stock fuel line is left intact. Plant oils like soy and canola, which are similar to regular diesel fuel in that they are liquid at room temperature and have similar BTU content, are about 10-15 times more viscous than No. 2 diesel. Heat is required to reduce the viscosity of the SVO/WVO to a level the diesel engine can accept.

How does it work once the kit is installed? The modified diesel vehicle starts up on a starter fuel of either petroleum diesel or biodiesel drawn from the stock fuel tank, and then switches to the heated vegetable oil fuel once the engine is up to normal temperature.