Drivers Lining up for Converted Restaurant Oil to Fuel Vehicles

[Judi Lynn]

Drivers Lining up for Converted Restaurant Oil to Fuel Vehicles

May 25, 2005 — By Jason Stein, The Wisconsin State Journal
In the kitchen of a Culver's restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, dark vats of oil bubbled at 352 degrees Fahrenheit, and the smell of french fries hung in the air.

It's the smell, it turns out, of fuel.

As drivers gear up for Memorial Day trips, politicians and environmentalists gathered at the Culver's restaurant to give a tiny grant toward what might become a bigger trend running cars on the oil from restaurant fryers.

"I never dreamed that I'd be making Butter Burgers and fueling cars as well," joked Craig Culver, co-founder of the hamburger and frozen custard chain. "Who knows where it will go?"

The state Department of Administration is giving consulting firm Madison Environmental Group a $15,000 grant to help Culver's start a pilot program of converted diesel cars running on used, filtered soybean oil.
(snip/...)

http://www.enn.com/biz.html?id=631

[mhr]

1. I Can Hear It Now - "Would You Like Gas With Those Fries?"

eom

[SHRED]

2. Oh yeah

I'd be doing this if I had a diesel:
http://www.greasecar.com/product_list.cfm?cat=Greasecar%20Kits

http://www.greasecar.com/profiles_list.cfm

[Rex_Goodheart]

3. Hmmm...

I have a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta TDI (diesel engine) and would do a grease conversion if I could be assured of a constant supply of grease. What will happen when more and more people start competing for used restaurant grease?

[Paul Dlugokencky]

4. You can make your own!

check out http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

other links of interest:
http://www.greencar.com/
http://www.fattywagons.com/
and Willie Nelson's http://www.wnbiodiesel.com/ (in Texas!!!)




http://www.cafepress.com/kickindemocrats

[slor]

7. Thanks for the links n/t

[jobycom]

11. Those are two different things: biodiesel and Straight Vegetable Oil

Biodiesel is actually diesel fuel made from a chemical reaction from a mixture of vegetable oil and methanol. Your car barely knows the difference, and you can run biodiesel in any diesel engine.

What culvers is talking about is running a diesel on vegetable oil, without converting the oil to fuel. Some cars do very well for this, like my 82 Mercedes five cylinder. Other cars, especially some modern ones, have more problems. The cars have to be converted, basically by adding an extra fuel tank and lines, better filters, and a tank heater to heat the oil. Basically, you start the car on regular diesel fuel, then switch it to run on veggie oil, and then switch it back to regular fuel just before you kill the engine.

The other poster is right, though, that the problem will come when enough people are doing this that restaurants will start charging for their waste oil. It isn't just the demand from consumers--some companies and municipal governments are exploring running fleets off of WVO. A shortage of WVO will also kill the biodiesel supply. At that point, people will start charging more.

The optimistic part of this trend, though, is that you can make diesel fuel that burns cleaner than a Prius out of a product grown by American farmers. I think we can all see the advantages there.

[M155Y_A1CH]

5. What's that smell?

The price of a bar of bath soap will go sky high.

P&G is the biggest buyer of used grease in my region. They make bar soap from it.

[annabanana]

6. All that corn that we're subsidizing will have a place to go...

besides cheetos and fritos and the syrup in every health threatening thing....

[BiggJawn]

8. Fights, shootings, stabbings...

You know, the USUAL Murkan bullshit when greedy Murkans are confronted with a limited supply of something...

"Fuck YOU! *I* want MY grease first!"

I think the total production of ALL of America's gag-n-gulps would not even approach the WORST-case projection of the dribble that will come from ANWR.

We should view this technology as another use for used fryer grease, NOT a path to energy independence.

[getmeouttahere]

9. And how long before....

the oil companies squelch this whole thing, as a threat to their dominance.

[GliderGuider]

10. I just traded in a 540i BMW on a 2001 Jetta TDI

Mainly so I could run it on biodiesel. I'm not making my own yet, but a biodiesel blend is commercially available in Ottawa now. It's gradually becoming more common across this short-sighted, energy-guzzling continent. If we are ever going to survive Peak Oil, biodiesel has my vote for the best candidate for a replacement fuel.

Right now it's being made from soybeans and canola, but there is frantic research being done to get algae production underway. Soybeans yield about 45 gallons of biodiesel per acre, canola can produce about 125 gal/acre, but algae should be able to do 10,000 to 20,000 gal/acre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

[BiggJawn]

12. Algae? the crap I scrape off the sides of my fish tank?

Cool. Algae is the EASIEST stuff to grow!