Want to Get Off Oil? Start Making Biodiesel…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve sure been grumbling about my oil consumption since the Gulf Spill occurred. Every time I fill up my tank, I truly feel like I’m part of the problem.
I’ve made efforts to curtain my oil consumption, but I live in a rural town. This means no public transportation, and any foray into a civilized town with good restaurants means a half hour drive.
Which is why I’m about to buy a new car so I can start making my own biodiesel.
Transitioning to Biodiesel
I know on the surface buying a new car has nothing to do with curtailing my oil consumption.
But, I drive a little Honda Civic. Which means, gas only. If I want to get off oil, I have to have a car that burns diesel.
Right now I’m considering the VW Jetta TDI Wagon. Take a look…
The VW TDI Sportwagon uses Clean Diesel. Which means I could convert it to handle biodiesel and/or cooking oil blends.
Another bonus? Car and Driver reported that they were able to coax 50 mpg out of this car when they were testing it. That’s 20 more mpg than my Civic gets.
Is It Hard to Make Biodiesel?
Well since I don’t have my diesel car I haven’t made any yet. But my husband has researched the heck out of this subject, and he’s convinced we can easily do this in our garage.
There are several benefits to running your car off biodiesel.
1. Biodiesel uses vegetable oil. This means if you source your oil from restaurants (like McDonald’s), you’re reusing a waste product. This is called WVO, or Waste Vegetable Oil. It’s cheap, or even free to use.
2. Biodiesel reduces emissions from your car, which cuts down on greenhouse gasses.
3. Depending on what kind of biodiesel blend you use, you could save significantly on fuel costs. Some experts estimate that biodiesel homebrewers are making fuel for around 50 cents per gallon in their home.
Modifying Your Car
So, do you have to modify your car to use biodiesel?
Well, yes and no. The level of modification depends largely on the fuel you’re putting into your car.
If you’re going to be buying “traditional” biodiesel (which is usually 10% vegetable/90% diesel) you won’t have to make any conversion at all. The disadvantage to this is that you’re still using a lot of fossil fuel, and you’ll be paying for it just like you would with gas.
If you’re going to use SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil), then you’re going to have to make some adjustments to your car’s engine.
More Resources
There are tons of free tutorials online for making your own biodiesel.
The one I’ve been using is put out by Journey To Forever. They have a comprehensive list of instructions for making biodiesel.
2 Responses to “Want to Get Off Oil? Start Making Biodiesel…”
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Well as long as the biodiesel is being made from genuinely waste oil, say for instance from fast food outlets, no problem. The problem comes when crops are grown specifically for biodiesel, as this puts them in competition with food crops for available land, and as such a small percentage of the Earth’s surface is cultivable, this poses a problem with such a huge, and growing, human population and its need for food. Put simply, we don’t have enough usable land to continue burning fuel in internal combusion engines by switching to bio fuels and eat. OK to pour some vegetable oil in from time to time, it gets diluted by the diesel and doesn’t glue the engine up [in fact it improves efficiency by making the fit of moving parts tighter], but this isn’t a final solution so we can all stop worrying about the fuel we burn.
There’s been little thought devoted to redefining what we think is acceptable for personal transportation; perhaps the shiney, metal box with complete entertainment system, air conditioning and comfort overload should be abandoned for basic transport without the frills. The only way real fuel efficiency will come about will be oil getting much [much] more expensive, ten times the cost today should sharpen minds. The real cost of fuel is only now becoming apparent to a lot of Americans.
The statement that diesel is the ONLY alternative to gasoline is incorrect. Natural gas or methane is a viable alternative. So is propane. Fleet operators have been using natural gas or propane as vehicular fuel for decades. Here in Canada we have had dispensing stations alongside gasoline and diesel fuel refill stations but I have found this is not the case in the states.
My brother in law bought a retired school bus that was propane fuelled and used it as a camper for several years. It was only when he planned a trip to Disneyland that he discovered how scarce refuelling stations were south of the border. To refill our BBQ tanks we just go to a gas station that has propane tanks filling station tanks as well. Several cities hve been running busses on Natural gas for years.
There are several American companies that specialize in conversion kits to convert a regular gasoline fuelled vehicle to natural gas or propane.
The real issue is oil companies are not interested in enccouraging people to switch away from petroleum fuel to an alternative so you do not see the other type filling stations being installed on oil company properties like Shell, BP and Exxon.