It's no secret to the majority of our readers that it is possible to run many older diesel engines on nothing more than straight vegetable oil. In fact, the first diesel engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel, ran on peanut oil. This fact is also well known by the students at the Michigan Technical Academy who have converted their own school buses to run on waste vegetable oil. Garden Fresh Foods in Ferndale, Michigan is providing used veggie oil that was first used to fry tortilla chips for no charge. The total cost of the fuel for the two buses that are running on 100-percent veggie oil is estimated at about 80-cents a gallon. Other buses are running on a 10-percent blend of oil and diesel fuel. As the temps in Michigan go down, the blend will be adjusted, though the students are currently hard at work solving that problem with heaters. Great work.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Click on the image for high-res shots of this diesel 1967 Mercury Cougar

Much of the vegetable oil and biodiesel movement centers around the classic Mercedes-Benz inline six cylinder engine, but fine examples of the genre are getting tougher to find. As is always the case with older machines, time and driving in general take their toll on the bodies and chassis of our favorite classics. But, these old Mercedes lumps can be rebuilt to fine running order. Wondering what to do with that good-running or rebuilt turbodiesel engine? How about dropping it into the engine bay of some classic Detroit iron? Many of these older American vehicles were built with engine-bays capable of accepting everything from a straight-six to a huge big block V8 engine. If that sounds like too much trouble, perhaps you should take a look at an example that's already been converted. Right now on Craigslist in L.A. is a cherry 1967 Mercury Cougar with a Mercedes OM617 cast iron turbodiesel engine from a Mercedes-Benz 300SD. Mated to a four-speed manual tranny, we'd imagine that many trouble-free miles of burbling diesel goodness are in store for this particular gem. Thanks for the tip, Geeky1!


[Source: Craigslist]

If you are reading our site, you are probably already familiar with the fact that any diesel vehicle can run on biodiesel. As a matter of fact, most any can diesel vehicle can even run on used vegetable oil with just a few modifications. There are some issues with vegetable oil which must first be addressed, one of which is keeping the fuel warm. What many conversion vehicles do to remedy this situation is to heat the vegetable oil and starting the vehicle with regular diesel fuel. A few other modifications are generally made to the fuel system to filter the veggie oil before it gets to the combustion chambers. How would you go about performing these operations? Check out this Instructable for directions on how a conversion was done on an older school bus. A few drums were strapped under the bus with the middle one being preheated before sending fuel to the engine. Check out the mad-max style photo above for a glimpse into this conversion.

Don't have a veggie oil conversion but still want to use heat from your engine for something useful? How about for cooking... click here.

[Source: Instructables]

In many places around the world, roads are financed at least in part by a tax added to the price of fuel. When we head to the pumps, we pay for a little bit of the road we drive out onto as we leave the station. But people who make their own biofuels don't pay these taxes and yet they drive on roads other people pay for. To make sure the load is balanced out a bit, many governments tax biofuels whether they are home-brewed or purchased. To get an idea of how this plays out in Alaska, check out this post over at Arctic Vegwerks.

The system for collecting waste oil or biodiesel taxes ($0.08/gallon state and $0.244/gallon federal) in Alaska starts like this:

The user must submit their Alaska Motor Fuel Tax on a monthly basis. Yeah, the tax office would really prefer it wasn't so often, but it's written into law. Seems like they would lose money processing a whole bunch of $5 checks every month! Some states exempt the first 2500 gallons, and the feds only require quarterly taxes, so lobby your Alaska legislators if you want to improve the law!

Arctic Vegwerks goes on to describe just how to fill out the state paperwork and quotes parts of the law that affect some green drivers up north. Got any good stories of how it affects you where you live?

[Source: Arctic Vegwerks]

The 20th World Solar Challenge took place in Australia in October. One of the more unusual fuel types in the Greenfleet Class of the Darwin to Adelaide race was used by a "Troupy," a lightly modified 1989 Toyota Landcruiser.

According to Pure Energy Systems, the diesel-engined Troupy made the 3,000 kilometer-drive using a fuel called Bios Fuel H2W+, which is 40 percent water and 60 percent waste mineral oil.

Here's how PES describes it:

Bios Fuel claims to have developed a water-based fuel technology that allows hydrogen to be housed safely in water and released on demand for numerous applications. A proprietary catalyst allows water to be suspended in waste oil as an emulsion. The fuel is designed for power generation. It is one of several blends that Bios Fuel has certified to American ASTM standards.

While it is not designed for vehicles, it ran well in the 1989 Toyota Landcruiser Troop Carrier, or "Troupy" as they are affectionately called in the outback. "We thought testing in a harsh environment such as the Australian desert would demonstrate the viability of our fuel beyond doubt, and show that 2nd and 3rd generation waste can be combined with water to provide an energy source", said Bios Fuel founder and CEO Steve Ryan. "Using an old Troupy shows that you don't necessarily have to compromise lifestyle to reduce your effect on the environment".

There is a history of hype surrounding the idea of placing water into a vehicle's fuel tank, but I'll say - for now - that this appears to be legit. NZ Biofuels sent out a press release on the accomplishment and biosfuel.org has a slick PDF on H2W+ (and related fuels). If you've got a critical take on this fuel (or want to sing its praises), please share it with our readers in the comments below. It seems difficult to fake traveling 3,000 km in a media-rich environment like the Panasonic World Solar Challenge, doesn't it?

[Source: Sterling D. Allan / Pure Energy Systems News, h/t to Tim]

Ed Beggs grew diesel fuel in Ontario on his Canadian farm for years without realizing it. He called it soybeans back then. Today the British Columbia resident knows better. He likes to call it premium diesel fuel. Why the paradigm shift? Because Ed and his U.S. business partner, Craig Reece, operate PlantDrive, one of the premier companies producing Straight Vegetable Oil/Waste Vegetable Oil (SVO/WVO) conversion kits and components for fueling diesel engines with straight plant oil.

Conversion kit is really a misnomer. Auxiliary fuel system is more accurate since the vehicle gets an additional fuel line and fuel tank. The modified vehicle totes plant oil in a second tank (the stock diesel fuel tank is untouched in most systems) and the auxiliary fuel system is heated while the stock fuel line is left intact. Plant oils like soy and canola, which are similar to regular diesel fuel in that they are liquid at room temperature and have similar BTU content, are about 10-15 times more viscous than No. 2 diesel. Heat is required to reduce the viscosity of the SVO/WVO to a level the diesel engine can accept.

How does it work once the kit is installed? The modified diesel vehicle starts up on a starter fuel of either petroleum diesel or biodiesel drawn from the stock fuel tank, and then switches to the heated vegetable oil fuel once the engine is up to normal temperature.

Ray Holan is an accomplished auto mechanic, biofuel advocate, author of the book Sliding Home: A Complete Guide to Driving Your Diesel on Straight Vegetable Oil and regular feature contributor to AutoblogGreen.



Once upon a time, the station at 141 South Main Street in the sleepy college town of Oberlin, Ohio pumped you full of lead and no one thought twice. Ethyl, that is. Ethyl as in tetraethyl lead in the gas. Unleaded? A foreign word. Lead in the gas meant higher octane. Dare I suggest that lead foots loved it? Oh yeah. Head out to the drive-in in your chopped and channeled Merc. Those were the days.

But that was then. This is now. If current operator, Sam Merrett, has his way, the pumps at this 1950's vintage gas station will be soon pumping E85 (85% ethanol plus 15% unleaded) for flex-fuel vehicles and custom blends of biodiesel for diesels. A far cry from ethyl and the days when "Saturday Night Live" meant stuffing friends into your trunk and hitting a drive-in movie.

Sam and business partner, Bob Beckett, spent the last few months of 2005 cleaning up and renovating the dilapidated filling station near the Oberlin College campus. They opened the service bay doors as "Full Circle Fuels" in January 2006. How they got here is an interesting story.

[Read the rest after the jump]

There are a lot of considerations that go into greening your car. Some folks don’t mind the initial high cost of a hybrid or the work that goes into converting a diesel engine to run on SVO. Others see the rising cost of petroleum-based fuels and look to green technologies as a money saver. Then there are those who don’t know the difference between E10 and E85. If you’re the latter, then this Wisconsin State Journal mini-article will interest you.
Ethanol changes the chemical make-up of gasoline when the two are blended together, and that may not be good for your car. A single accidental fill-up with E85 in your standard gasoline engine shouldn’t hurt too much, according to the article, and you can top off with standard gas after a few miles to minimize the fuel’s possibly harmful corrosive effects. [Source: Wisconsin State Journal. And thanks again to AutoblogGreen’s prolific tipster, Joel A]

This is a newspaper story we're going to be seeing more and more in the coming years. The Wisconsin State Journal set out to show how increasing gasoline prices are raising interest in biodiesel and other alternative fuels. The solid article then goes on to showcase local biodiesel promoters and producers in Wisconsin. If you're looking for information about just how "green" Green Bay is, this article might be the right place to start.

One cost comparison of going green in Wisconsin: a local pizzeria decided to invest $40,000 in four Volkswagens that run on either biodiesel or SVO (the article isn't exactly clear on this point) and now saves between $250 to $500 a week because they don't have to pay anyone to haul off the restaurant's waste oil. They just put it into their delivery vehicles. And if we use $375 as an average weekly saving, the store will recoup its investment in just over two years. After that, perhaps they'll tip the delivery folks a bit more each trip.

Another reason to shift to biodiesel: by mid-June, a Madison-based biodiesel fuel co-op hopes to be selling locally processed biodiesel to its members in June for around or under $3 a gallon. When summer's gasoline price spikes kick in, that'll sound awfully sweet. [Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Image Credit: Wisconsin State Journal]

Ray Holan is an accomplished auto mechanic, biofuel advocate, author of the book Sliding Home: A Complete Guide to Driving Your Diesel on Straight Vegetable Oil and regular feature contributor to AutoblogGreen.



Compared to a VW Jetta TDI, this truck's a monster.

One look at the Great Lakes Brewing Company's Freightliner tractor trailer and it's immediately evident this is no diminutive VW. This baby is serious hardware. The Cleveland-based company's rig can haul a trailer stuffed to the double doors with 22 pallets of vegetable oil (OK, or 22 pallets of bottled beer). At 60 cartons per pallet (each about 4.54 gallons), that works out to 6,000 gallons of salad oil – enough to fuel about 15 converted Jetta TDI's for a year.

But it's what's up front that counts. The Freightliner not only hauls vegetable oil - and the occasional load of brewski's. It has been converted to run on vegetable oil as well as diesel.

If you’re new to the whole biofuel world, there may be a lot of terminology that you’re reading but not understanding. To that end, here’s a glossary of words we’ll be using regularly on AutoblogGreen, and what we mean when we use them. Stick around, and you’ll know your B20 from your FFV in no time.

• Biofuel – a fuel, such as biodiesel or ethanol, which is made, at least in part, from plant-based materials.
• Biomass – any organic substance, like wood chips or sugar cane, which is used as a base in making a biofuel.
• Biodiesel – diesel fuel that is made in whole or in part from biological sources. Biodiesel fuels are referred to according to the percentage of biodiesel mixed with regular diesel, so B20 is made from 20-percent biofuel and 80-percent regular fuel. More at Wikipedia.
• Ethanol – Ethanol is a fuel that can be made from biological sources and results from the fermenting of sugars with yeast. Some cars can run on pure ethanol, others use ethanol blended with gasoline. These blends are named after the percentage of ethanol in the mix, so E85 is made with 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent traditional gasoline. More at Wikipedia.
• FFV – Flexible Fuel Vehicle, a standard gasoline engine that has been modified to accept ethanol-gasoline blends. Most new cars in Brazil and an increasing number in the United States are FFVs.
• Hybrid – A vehicle that can run off of either the standard engine or battery under the hood. The battery is charged while driving, and is often the sole power source to start the car and operate it at low speeds.
• SVO – straight vegetable oil. Most diesel cars can run on SVO, but modifications need to be made first, such as adding a second fuel tank for non-SVO fuel. The car must be started and run for a few minutes until the SVO heats up and thins out enough to run through the engine. More at Wikipedia.