The Millennial Files

Basic and High-Tech Solutions for a Clean Environment

(10/27/2004) Since 2001, Dave Dunham, a Web master from Fayetteville, Ark., has fueled his diesel cars and tractors with waste cooking oil he gets free from restaurants. Thanks to the ingenuity of Justin Carven, 27, founder of Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems in Easthampton, Massachusetts, Dunham has joined a small, expanding network of do-it-yourselfers, environmentalists, farmers and others who see logic in using vegetable oil ? referred to as straight vegetable oil, or S.V.O. ?or other alternative renewable fuels like biodiesel.

Dunham, 24, was attending Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., in 2001 when a news article inspired him to convert an earlier car, a 1985 Golf diesel, to run on S.V.O. At Carven?s web site, Grease car.com, he found and bought a conversion kit, which today costs around $800, and takes about in eight hours to install (authorized Greasecar installers can do conversions for an additional $600 to $800). Dunham originally got much of his oil from the Tulum Mexican restaurant in Bethlehem, Pa. “First we thought it strange,” said Walt Diller, 37, who runs the restaurant. “But we saw Dave’s car and we said, Why not? “When we’d change our nachos and wings fryer oil, we’d funnel it into containers, put a smiley face on them and Dave would pick up about 20 gallons a week and leave empties.” Restaurants ordinarily pay to have their waste oil removed.

Straight vegetable oil has some advantages over biodiesel. Biodiesel is available at more and more suppliers around the country, but it is expensive and taxable as a motor fuel. Because of cost, it is usually mixed with diesel fuel, but can be burned by itself. S.V.O., by contrast, is not taxable, and when collected from restaurants, it is essentially free. (New vegetable oil can be used, but it costs at least $2 a gallon.) However, it cannot be burned alone. Vegetable oil congeals when cold, and Carven’s system, like other vegetable oil conversion kits, uses heat from the engine to warm the oil so it flows. The Greasecar kit includes a round 15-gallon aluminum tank (it fits in the spare-tire well), lines connecting to the engine to warm and deliver the oil and a filter to clean impurities from the oil. In most cases, cars that run on vegetable oil must keep their conventional diesel fuel system. The Greasecar kit includes a valve so that the driver can switch between the two.

“Start your car on the diesel tank,” recommends Carven. “After a short warm-up, push the button, switching to the S.V.O. tank. Before stopping the engine, push the switch again, to shut down on regular diesel fuel.” This clears vegetable oil from the fuel system, so it cannot clog fuel injectors (George P. Blumberg, NYT, 10/27/2004).

(May 5, 2005) Three standard-production Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI (Common-Rail Direct Injection) vehicles equipped with the 221-hp powerplants covered distances of 100,000 kilometers, 50,000 and 100,000 miles respectively in world-record times. Combined, the three record diesel vehicles traveled the equivalent of almost eight times around the world, with the 100,00 mile record achieving an average speed of 139.699 mph. Despite the extreme stresses, the maintenance-free diesel particulate filter held up magnificently over the entire record distance without any deterioration in performance.

The E320 CDI can pass current 45-state emissions standards, achieving 27/37 mpg for city and highway driving, respectively, translating into up to 30 percent better fuel economy than comparable gasoline engines. With increased availability of low-sulfur ?clean? diesel fuel in the U.S. imminent, Mercedes-Benz engineers are optimistic that the CDI diesel can eventually meet emissions standards in all 50 states(theautochannel.com 5/5/05).