Comments on: Trans-America Journey Powered by Waste Vegetable Oil

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:39:27 +0000

Stacy,

This is AJ’s Aunt Chris (Scott’s mom). I saw an article about you and your trip in the Toledo City Paper, plus talked to Becky the other day. Your website is great. I am glad that you are having such an adventure! Would you ever considering speaking to my 6th grade students about alternative energy? Just let me know. Good luck on the rest of your trip. I look forward to reading more. Glad you, Jessi, and Lisa got to visit!

By: stacy

stacy — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:36:52 +0000

Logan – I will try to explain how it works in short version, and if you have more questions you can e-mail me at staycj[AT]gmail.com. You must have a diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. You should look up Rudolph Diesel, who invented the diesel engine. He ran his first diesel engines on peanut oil. To run on vegetable oil, not biodiesel (you should note that they are different), you must filter the vegetable oil to a certain level and makes sure the oil is hot enough before it goes through the fuel lines and to the engine. To run on vegetable oil you must have modifications to the car, to run on biodiesel you do not need modifications on the car. You must have diesel engine to run either. * To answer your second question, everyone with a diesel engine could run on vegetable oil or biodiesel – to filter and prepare the car for vegetable oil takes a small investment of money, but it does take a fair amount of time, to collect and filter the vegetable oil. Biodiesel is not readily available in many parts of the US. I hope this information helps and good luck with your project!

By: logan

logan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:57:37 +0000

I am in middle school doing a project on alternative energy. I just can’t understand how you can run a car on vegtable oil. If it works so well, why can’t everyone’s car run off of vegtable oil. I can’t think of how the car generates electricity. Great idea by the way!

By: Green Earth

Green Earth — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:28:19 +0000

What a great way to promote alternative fuel and have a wonderful adventure too. My husband and I outfitted our sailboat with wind and solar so we never had to run an engine to power our boat. Now we are looking at things to do in our everyday lives to help put some green back into the planet!

By: Stan

Stan — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:44:22 +0000

I drive Euro4 diesel car, which is one of the cleanest vehicle available on market. Euro4 diesel actually has zero tolerance for one of the most important diesel engine lubrucants – sulfur – which of course produces soot, the main pollutant in diesel cycle. The lack of that natural lubricant is replaced by synthetic lubricant. Plus, obvously winter diesel has antigel additives. Heating diesel in winter time is pointless, since you should heat it all the time – if it gels then the paraffins cannot be melted back in the fuel.

All this being said, no wonder why every other page of the manual warns against using biodiesel or worse WVO.

At last, I can only imagine the amount of noise, smoke and soot that 1981 diesel car emits per mile.

So let’s not get carried away. The benefit of being green by recycling some WVO should not be more that the cost of operating that equipment, and I am not talking about money.