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Veggie Fuels Feed Bottom Line

Veggie Fuels Feed Bottom Line

By James Bernard Frost

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,59713,00.html

When Joshua Tickell drove his Veggie Van across the country in 1997, fueling it with used vegetable oil he obtained at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silver's and other fast food chains owned by PepsiCo, he received a great deal of lighthearted attention from the mainstream media for the van's deep-fried fumes. Although the media thought it was funny, Tickell was serious.

Six years later, with the Department of Energy's 2003 Annual Energy Report showing that more than two-thirds of known oil reserves lie in the troubled Middle East, the laughter seems hollow.

A curious blend of consumers -- from clean-air activists to school districts to the U.S. military (PDF) -- are now running their diesel engines off either straight vegetable oil, known as SVO, or vegetable oil that has been converted to diesel fuel, or biodiesel. The results, they're finding, make more than just environmental sense.

Steve Smith, a Berkeley, California, resident who drives a 1982 Mercedes 300-GD SUV, has converted his car's diesel engine to run off SVO using a conversion kit made by German-based Elsbett. "With some mechanical experience, it took me a weekend and a few weekday nights to install," Smith said.

Smith collects free fuel, up to 35 gallons of used corn oil a week, from a local Indian restaurant. "My engine runs off of samosas and pakoras," he jokes.

Smith pre-filters the oil with a "sock" that he obtains from the SVO-supplier Greasel.

"I've also added a VorMax filter (an advanced fuel filtration system that removes contaminants), so I don't have to change the fuel filter every week."

Pawl Katan, an SVO advocate from Prescott, Arizona, who has helped modify four Mercedes diesels to run on SVO, notes that the deal is good for both vehicle owners and restaurateurs. "It costs (my local restaurant) about $1 a gallon to have their used fryer oil picked up. I save them money."

Fears of engine clogging, void warranties and the price of commercial conversion kits (both the Elsbett and Greasel systems run about $800) keeps all but the most savvy from modifying their vehicles to run off of straight vegetable oil. Even Craig Reese, co-owner of Neoteric, a Canadian-based company that is building prototype SVO conversion kits to compete with Elsbett and Greasel, notes, "I had a professional mechanic install the Elsbett kit (in my first SVO vehicle.)"

Because of this, most interest in bio-based fuels has revolved around biodiesel.

Maria "Mark" Alovera, publisher of the Biodiesel Homebrewers Guide, makes "home brew" from a chemical reaction involving lye and methanol. "It costs me about 45 cents a gallon to produce," Alovera said.

It's not just enthusiasts, though, who are turning to biodiesel as a viable alternative fuel. Big business is involved as well.

Jenna Higgins, Director of Communications for the National Biodiesel Board, points out that commercial biodiesel production has tripled between 2001 and 2002 (from 5 million to 15 million gallons). "Proctor & Gamble, West Central Soy and World Energy are all NBB member suppliers."

"Over 300 fleets are running on some grade of biodiesel."

Greg Piraino, an engineer with Applied Engineering in Phoenix, has worked with the Deer Valley School District to run their buses on B20 (20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent diesel). The buses have logged over 10 million miles.

"It's an impressive figure," Piraino said, "They have 165 buses that have been running off of biodiesel for four years."

Blue Sun Biodiesel, located in Fort Collins, Colorado, recently received a $1,000,000 grant from the Department of Energy to research varieties of canola in an attempt to increase oil yield in the crop. Although soybean oil has been the primary source of commercial U.S. biodiesel, canola oil is used widely in German biodiesel production, and is considered the superior crop.

John Long, founder of Blue Sun, spoke to the farming industry's interest in biodiesel. "(Farmers are interested in this because) canola is a short-cycle crop, with a four-month growing cycle. They can grow winter wheat and then canola in the same year, reducing fallow crop time, and thus increasing income," Long said. "Our (company’s) values are three-fold: U.S. energy independence; sustainable, rural economic development; and clean air."

Long's comments on farmers bring up an important point that biodiesel activists like Joshua Tickell, who is currently fundraising for his film, Fields of Fuel, have been trying to make for years. This isn't just about global warming concerns; it's also about the bottom line.

"Biodiesel is in its infancy. As biodiesel (use) grows, the price will drop," Tickell said. "Meanwhile petroleum is only getting more expensive. Sooner or later, the price curves will cross."

And when they do, we'll all drive a bit more hungrily.