Waste Vegetable Oil: A Cheaper and Cleaner Alternative to Petroleum Fuel

This article is intended to be an introduction on how to take advantage of a free (outside of your time and set-up costs) alternative fuel source to power your vehicle while at the same time drastically reducing the amount of pollution that is associated with petroleum fueled vehicles. The alternative fuel source I am referring to is known as waste vegetable oil (WVO), it is commonly used to fry food and promptly discarded after it is used. Only vehicles with diesel engines can consume WVO, which is a limiting factor because only ~2% of vehicles in the USA are diesel. Utilizing WVO also entails installing components on your vehicle in order to reduce the viscosity of the oil before it is consumed by the engine (oil is thicker than diesel gasoline). This entire process may seem confusing and sound like a hassle to many, but it is worth the effort for the people that can see the monetary and environmental benefits it offers.

The first step in deciding if you are eligible to use WVO as fuel is to make sure you can find some WVO sources near you, sometimes it can be problematic finding sources so it does not make much sense to spend money on a vehicle if you are not going to have WVO to fuel this vehicle. Waste vegetable oil can be found in abundance at most restaurants (especially fast food), hotels, catering companies, fairs, malls, and certain food processing factories. Most of these places pay rendering companies to pick up and dispose of their waste oil. In order to gain access to this oil for personal use I recommend building a relationship with the owner/management of the oil source as well as applying for the necessary permits in order to transport the WVO (in the State of California the permit is called the "Inedible Kitchen Grease Transporter Registration Application" which costs $100 registration fee plus a $75 "Enforcement" fee, and it requires the transporter to have liability insurance or a surety bond of ≥ $1,000,000). This license will ensure that you and your oil source are complying with State law to remove and transport the WVO. What I do not recommend is removing oil from a renderer's or another individual's holding container that already has an arrangement with the oil source(s). In my experience, I have found it pretty easy to convince an oil source to use you as a transporter, especially if you agree to dispose of it at no cost to them.

Once you have found your WVO source(s), it is time to decide what type of diesel vehicle you prefer as your primary form of transportation (unless you are already the proud owner of one). As mentioned above only ~2% (4.8 million) of the passenger cars, light trucks, and SUV's in the USA are diesel, this drastically limits one's options. Compounding this problem, only a few car manufacturers have been diligent about offering diesel vehicles (passenger cars: Mercedes and VW; light trucks: Dodge, Ford, Chevrolet, GMC; SUV's: Dodge, Ford, Chevrolet, Hummer, and VW). In addition to the ability to utilize alternative fuels, diesel vehicles on average consume 20-40% less fuel than a comparable gasoline powered vehicle. A diesel vehicle must be "converted" to use WVO because of the differences in viscosity between WVO and diesel fuel. This is accomplished by purchasing a conversion kit and installing it yourself or having a professional install the kit on your vehicle. Conversion costs range from ~$2000-3,000 for passenger cars (~$1,000-2,000 for the conversion kit plus ~$1,000 for the installation) and for light tucks and SUV's it ranges from $4,500- 6,000 (~$3,000-4,500 for the conversion kit plus ~$1,500 for the installation). Information pertaining to conversion kits as well as the companies that offer conversion kits for sale include: www.greasecar.com; www.frybrid.com; www.dinofuelalternatives.com, www.roverhybrids.com, and www.plantdrive.com.

The last step in the process is to determine how you want to remove the food debris and water from the inherently dirty WVO so that your new diesel vehicle does not suffer the consequences of dirty fuel. Cleaning the oil can be accomplished in two drastically different methods; 1) passively filtering oil through different types of filter media and/or letting the oil settle for prolonged periods of time so the heavier debris and water are driven to the bottom by gravity while the lighter clean oil constitutes the translucent top layer, and/or 2) by actively removing the contaminants by using electric pumps that force oil through a multitude of filters or using a centrifuge to physically separate the debris and water from the oil. There are many different opinions with regards to cleaning oil but the most important aspect is how much time and physical involvement you want to devote to this process. If you prefer a system with the least amount of overall involvement (time, clean up, and space requirements) I would recommend choosing one of the more expensive active methods to clean oil; if overall involvement is not a concern then one of the cheaper passive methods may better suite your needs. In my experience most people initially choose one of the passive methods, then realized that it is much too involved for them and upgrade to one of the active methods to cleaning their oil. This was the exact reason for developing a centrifuge ($1,200; www.absolutecentrifuge.com) for the cleaning of WVO, it provides the consumer with a product that works extremely well at cleaning WVO while at the same time minimizes the involvement requirement. The centrifuge can be set-up so that once you start the oil cleaning process it automatically shuts down without any additional required involvement except for when you want to fill up your vehicle or restart the centrifuge.

You are most likely thinking at this point, that this option seems like a lot of money to pay up front, and that it appears to be far too time consuming for your already busy life. Consequently, you are questioning whether this venture is worth pursuing or not? Allow me put into perspective exactly how this option is worth pursuing by using the table below to illustrate the savings you will incur:

As you can tell the maximum it will take you to pay back your investment to convert your car and purchase a processing system will take 2 years and 2 weeks if you use only 20 gallons of fuel a week. Outside of fuel savings, the most compelling benefit to converting your vehicle is the elimination of carbon dioxide which comprises 94-95% of all greenhouse gases as well as drastically reducing the amount of the remaining greenhouse gases (methane and nitrous oxide). The average passenger car produces ~5.5 metric tons of new carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) a year when powering it with petroleum in comparison to zero CO2e by using WVO. Burning WVO is considered a carbon neutral reaction because the amount of CO2e released into the atmosphere is the same amount of CO2e absorbed by the plants which produced the oil that is being burned. This alternative fuel option is the best of both worlds, because not only will you save money in the long term, you will also be reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by at least 94-95%!