I wrote an earlier diary without the convenience of spell-check, and spent half my time in comments defending my "text-message style" of prose. I'd like to briefly take a second look at the issue of Veggiecars and alternative fuels, now that the election has ended and other topics are seeing daylight. I'll write this diary with the assumption that almost all of my readers will be very familiar with current info concerning alternative fuels, etc. I'd like to keep the focus on my own experience, and share what some of my thoughts about alternative fuel are. I'll let the rest of you contribute your own knowledge about everything besides my pet project, and I'm guessing another kossack already has one of these cars as well.
There seems to be a decent level of awareness, in LA at least, of the vegetable-oil car concept. Apparently Mandy Moore has one now, joining Daryl Hannah in the vegcar club. In brief: any diesel (almost) including Mercedes, Volkswagen, Cummins, etc can be run on vegetable oil in a moderate climate. However, straight vegetable oil (SVO) will clog a diesel engine's fuel lines and leave engine sludge because of its excessive viscosity. This has been known for many decades, but people in warm climates like California have been able to creatively use mixes of vegetable oil/biodiesel/regular diesel to power their vehicles for some time now. I know they experimented with this concept in the 70s, even my mom remembers that happening. The latest twist is the development of heating/filtering kits for diesel cars to run on SVO, without any (bio) diesel fuel at all. These kits basically heat the veggie oil to lower the viscosity and raise the oil to its combustion temp. There are several entrepreneurs with shops doing this work already; in LA the guys at Lovecraft have made a name for themselves. Their website www.lovecraftbiofuels.com gives a much more detailed explanation of the veggie system, and I highly recommend you check it out. Greasel is another conversion company out East. Lovecraft has been featured in the LA Times, the LA weekly, and lots of alternative media. It's also in my neck of the woods, so I schemed for a few months to buy a cheap '78 Mercedes 300D and pay the $700 conversion cost. I've wanted to do this since May '05, and when I heard about Lovecraft I knew it was on. Since vegetable oil is waste product at restaurants and cafeterias, there is a readily available supply of free fuel-for now. Rendering companies are paid to haul off this grease, and they use it for animal feed (eh). Some commenters on my last diary made the obvious point that there isn't enough veggie oil to go around. They may be true sometime in the future, but right now the industry is underperforming given the potential. There are already businesses springing up to fill the niche market for waste vegetable oil(WVO), and in LA www.veggifuel.org has stepped up to the plate so far. If you don't have the time to collect free oil and filter it, then you buy wvo for 1-2bucks a gallon. Gas mileage in a veggie car is about the same as regular diesel, emissions are 75% less according to California smog tests.
On a personal note, I chose the Benz because the Reagan-year Benzes have a sturdy steel crankcase. Those panzers can take a beating! Plus, these cars are good for hundreds of thousands of miles...if kept in good shape, of course. The world record for most mileage on one car was a Mercedes taxi in Greece. I was getting my oil from campuses, but now I find it easy to just pay a buck a gallon, and maybe get a little B99 for cold-weather starts. Straight WVO is a little problematic for cold weather, so it helps to have access to biodiesel, which is here in socal.
I'm forgetting a lot of details in the back of my mind, but if anyone asks questions I'll try to stay awake and answer. I look forward to hearing your ideas. Given the new ultra low sulfur rule for diesel gas, the higher gas mileage for diesel cars, their longevity, and the other advances in diesel hybrid technology, it's getting a little more exciting. I'm done with petroleum, a filthy habit. But I'm sure most of you are familiar with Brazil's ethanol production and hopefully someone can school me on the current research into other stock crops for biofuel. Switchgrass, sugarcane, corn is no good, hemp maybe??
Oh yeah, R.I.P. Proposition 87. Damn you chevron/Big OIL.