Thinking about a car to run on used cooking oil...

[Darfield]

As many know, my husband and I are building an earthship (http://www.darfieldearthship.com) in the interior of BC (Canada). We've taken a bit of a break the last few months after a pretty intense 9 months of construction. I've been picking up bookkeeping work and my most lucrative contracts are in a city an hours drive from our home. I've been driving our 2006 Honda CRV. We rode to a sustainability conference with Ed Beggs of Plant Drive (http://www.plantdrive.com/index.html)at the end of January and we were fortunate to be able to pick his brain about converting deisel engine vehicles to run on used cooking oil. Selling the conversion kits is just one of his business activities. We are seriously considering selling the CRV and buying a used deisel vehicle to lower the costs of my commute, which at $1.24 a litre, costs $20 round trip. We also have the option of licencing our motorcycle for me to use (I've had my licence for 28 years). Just wondering if anybody has a vehicle that runs on used cooking oil and what the pros and cons of it are (from a personal perspective). We got great information from Ed, but would like to hear other experiences.

[Dharma Bum]

Does a conversion preclude you from using diesel such that you can run only on cooking oil, or does it allow you to run on both?

[Float On]

Research your supply of used cooking oil. Is there more than enough? Or will you be driving hours out of your way to find it? There has been an increase in theft charges recently with restaurant owners filing charges against people taking oil from the holding tanks without permission. I use to follow the blog of a young family who traveled the country in a big RV that ran on used cooking oil and that was one of their biggest challenges of always having to find a new supply.

[Darfield]

It can run on both. Ed has a great blurb about how to approach restaurants for oil. Apparently Japanese restaurant oil is preferable because it is changed more frequently and doesn't need to settle as much. Ed also explained to us how there are two companies in our area of BC that collect used cooking oil from restaurants. They use it in other products; one of which is rendering and turning into animal feed. (!). Apparently there are lines of ownership once the oil is placed in the collector's bins out behind the restaurant. I have a good relationship with the only fast food place in our town (there are other restaurants with oil) so I'm hoping it would go well, but we recognize that we may have to collect oil from Kamloops, too. I'm loathe to give up our CRV; we're a family that actually uses our SUV off highway...we pull a trailer behind to transport 4-H animals, we go to out of the way places to ski, I often put the seats down and haul big things in the back. We would have to think about the deisel vehicle and what it might be so we don't lose this functionality. We also own a Nissan Frontier pick up truck that we put on the road only in summer. That may become our job vehicle and we may get a very fuel efficient desiel car for running all over the place. Lots to think about...

[loosechickens]

We've met several people doing this......one fulltime RVer with a diesel bus, who pulled a truck with all the equipment to make his diesel in it, and periodically when he needed fuel, would stop in an area, contact mostly Chinese restaurants (for some reason he thought they were the best sources), and then he'd get oil and make a batch of fuel and move on. My sweetie helped him several times, and it really was a bit more complicated and required more stuff than most people think.

Probably easier to do if you are in one place, and can get regular sources of used oil and can have a place set up to do the processing.

We have a book on how to do it, and periodically my sweetie talks about it.......I think as long as few people are doing it, finding used oil might be easy, but as it becomes more popular, that will push up the value of the used cooking oil, and it will be harder to get.

But, diesel engines were designed to run on such things in the beginning, and it's certainly a good reason for choosing diesel, since you do have that capacity without a bunch of conversion difficulty.

[Darfield]

We've heard the argument that the value of the oil might go up...Ed says he's never seen it happen. He has dealers all over Canada and the U.S. Not to say it COULDN'T happen, but he's been doing it about 10 years and claims it's an untapped market. I was interested to learn that in some places, though, the collectors (who have contracts with restaurants) sometimes get shirty when their supply decreases because of restaurants giving away oil...it was interesting to me because we encountered the same thing when we were collecting tires for the earthship. There are SO MANY tires in this world, never mind in Kamloops and Barriere (where we were collecting), but the recyclers who drive up from Vancouver to collect tires from the interior of BC saw us collecting from Cooper Tires (with the tire shop's permission) and the next time we went Coopers told us that they were asked to turn us away because the recyclers had a contract with them and were waving it around. It didn't matter much...the sheer volume of tires meant being turned away at one place wasn't a big deal. I guess the company that collects used cooking oil owns it as soon as it is deposited in the "bin", but not before. Ed asks for the oil to be put back in the container it came in and he takes it away, whereas I understand that the restaurants, when they pour the oil into the "bin" have to dispose of the plastic container on their own. And in this day and age of "tipping" fees at landfills, having somebody deal with your plastic containers is a real bonus.

[Darfield]

Just asked Ed about Mitsubishi Delicas and he's owned one that he converted to vegetable oil. He quite liked it. I like it because it's 4x4 and can tow our livestock trailer. Anybody own one of these Japanese vans?

[Darfield]

Gas just jumped to $1.30 per litre in Kamloops (multiply by 4 to get approximate price per gallon). Here's what we've been thinking... http://www.darfieldearthship.com/2011/03/motivation-for-wvo-vehicle-directly-proportional-to-price-at-pump.html

[Darfield]

All systems go for a local source of used cooking oil...

[SRP]

On another note - my dad and brother use used motor oil in his diesel truck. I don't know exact details, but it has to be mixed with a small amount of regular diesel to work. They collect the used stuff from repair shops, etc., take it out to the house and run it through a filtering process - what Dad calls his "refinery."

You do NOT want to get behind their trucks, because the stuff doesn't burn very clean and stinks to high heaven. I wouldn't consider this option environmentally friendly. But it certainly cuts down on their fuel bills.

[Darfield]

We have a friend who collects used motor oil and burns it in his shop furnace...same idea.

[Darfield]

It's been forever since I logged in...we did indeed purchase a Delica in October 2011. We successfully converted it and then drove around North America that winter on a 2 month trip with the kids (our clients let us telecommute, fabulous). We've continued to use the van for all our trips. Our local oil source is about 90% of our use...I pick up once a month from a restaurant north of us and a few fish camps call me each fall to pick up their year's supply of used oil. It works out fine. We are currently in the process of buying a diesel jetta to convert. Our oldest turned 16 a few months ago and we want a non-right hand drive for her to learn on.