Diana McLaren
Bankrate.com
November 13, 2009

A round trip from Orillia, Ont., to Toronto is 270 kilometres, and William Cox recently made the drive in his 1979 Mercedes. Total fuel cost: $1.25.

How is this possible? Cox runs his car on used vegetable oil he gets for free from local restaurants, along with a little diesel fuel at the start and finish of each trip, which accounts for the $1.25 expenditure.

"Since I converted my car to run on veggie fuel a year and a half ago, I’ve put 55,000 kilometres on it, and it’s cost me in the neighbourhood of $500 for fuel," he says. That’s only because of the diesel Cox has to purchase when he’s on long trips away from home.

Cox is so positive about veggie oil fuel that he has a part-time business developing fuel conversion kits and installing them. In large part, he uses equipment purchased from PlantDrive Canada, of Salmon Arm, B.C.

PlantDrive’s co-founder, Edward Beggs, developed the conversion technology as part of his Master’s thesis at Royal Roads University. Recently returned from Germany, where he was part of the first Plant Oil Fuels International Congress, he says it’s hard to track the number of people fueling their cars and trucks with veggie oil. "A lot of them are do-it-yourselfers," he says, but he estimates there are approximately 50,000 in North America, with several thousand in Canada.

Beggs has run his ’92 Volkswagen Jetta on veggie oil for five and a half years and estimates it’s cost him "a couple of hundred dollars for some diesel fuel" to go the 120,000 kilometres he’s traveled.

Simpler procedure

If you’re interested in switching to veggie fuel, you need a diesel-engine vehicle. You can then buy a kit with all of the necessary parts you need for the conversion, including an oil tank and equipment to thin the oil (which is thicker than diesel) so it can move into the combustion chamber and burn as fuel to run your car.

Of course, you also need a source for the veggie oil itself. Cox and Beggs get theirs from local restaurants only too happy to give it away, as it saves them having to pay a company to dispose of the left-over fryer oil sitting in barrels out back of their restaurants. But you can also purchase oil from dealers or processing plants.

From there, it’s a straight-forward procedure: you simply siphon the oil into containers and haul it home. There, you must put it through a filtering and water-separating system and then store it in water-tight storage containers until you’re ready to fuel up your car.

And then you’re ready for take-off. A word about that: regular diesel (or biodiesel) fuel must be used to start the engine until it’s sufficiently warmed for the veggie oil to take over. Diesel is also required before turning off the engine to clear the fuel lines. Many veggie fuel users purchase small alarms to remind them to switch to diesel before turning off their cars.

While veggie oil can be classified as a bio-fuel, it really belongs in a separate category since biodiesel, whether from animal or plant sources, requires processing to turn it into fuel, while vegetable oil goes straight into the converted engine.

What it costs

Beggs says his basic conversion kit, which costs $1,000, is all most drivers need. For certain types of newer automobiles, however, Beggs says it may cost more as they have "more complex systems so will need more complex monitoring."

Modifications are also required for cars in colder climates where it’s harder to keep the oil thin enough. Cox says his ’79 Mercedes runs well in Orillia’s temperatures until the mercury dips below -30 C.

In addition to purchasing the equipment, you should also consider the cost of installation. Beggs says "it’s not rocket science" and takes from two to four days of work. Cox’s average cost is $800 to $1,200. Beggs says a PlantDrive installation will vary greatly depending on the type of car and equipment, but it averages about $1,500.

PlantDrive itself provides lots of help through its kit instructions, website and contact with Beggs or people like Cox who sell and install the kits. "If you are a competent backyard mechanic and understand your car’s electrical and heating and cooling systems, and have the right tools, you can do it yourself," Cox says.

As for potential damage to your vehicle, the main thing to watch out for is poor-quality oil. To help you overcome this, PlantDrive’s website has an extensive section on oil considerations.

Helping the planet

In addition to fuel savings, there’s another kind of savings that motivates people to consider veggie-oil fuel: saving the environment.

"It can be a three-way win," says Norman Rubin, policy analyst with Energy Probe. "It has the potential to be good for the restaurant owner who would have to pay to have the used oil removed, good for the driver who saves money and good for the environment by not burning fossil fuels or burying the used oil in landfills."

Since veggie oil operates outside of the mainstream regulatory systems, there’s not a lot of data on its environmental impact. But it’s self-evident, say the experts, that there are far fewer hazards when compared to other methods. PlantDrive has participated in a joint emissions study on a 2002 Volkswagen Golf TDI modified by PlantDrive at Colorado State University’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified lab.

"This system was able to produce emissions levels well below the acceptable EPA standards for this vehicle on both ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) and straight Canola oil," states the study findings.

Newly returned from an international conference on plant oils, Beggs says it was "astonishing" to see how widespread use is in Germany where more than 100,000 vehicles run on veggie fuel and where there are veggie fuel outlets to rival traditional gas stations.

"We are babes in the woods in terms of where we need to be going in the next 10 to 15 years," says Beggs. And while he says veggie oil isn’t the only answer in creating more environmentally friendly cars, it’s a good start.

Diana McLaren is a writer in Toronto.

Read the original article here.