The price of cooking oil just went up!?!!?!?

[Todd S. Malicoate]

This has been around for a very long time, and you don't even need the 40% diesel.

In fact, there's a guy in Tulsa who regularly visits the restaurants to "recycle" their used cooking oil into vehicle fuel. Perhaps it's SplatterTone???

[SplatterTone]

I got Dr. Emmett Brown's DeLorean. I make daily stops at the dog pound. I can guarantee my exhaust is BS free.

[The Jackson]

I just saw an episode of Good Eats tonight all about oils*, and it's a shame that using this stuff isn't mainstream.



*THIS MAKES ME AN EXPERT

[tbn.al]

A former member of my church orchestra has been running his VW diesel on reclaimed cooking oil for over 10 years. He likes high class Chineese restaraunts the best. He says their oil doesn't need any filtering. No smell to it either. You can always tell when he has had to resort to hamberger chains for stock. After church the whole parking lot smells like a McDonalds. He commutes downtown to the IRS building 5 days a week. At last count he had put over 100,000 miles on the VW burning cooking oil with no adverse maintainance all the while getting 40 mpg. The mileage doesn't really make a difference though, after all it's free. He started doing it because he figured he was paying a high emotional price for the commute and knowing he was making the drive for free helped ease the pain.

[Rick Denney]

I know a guy who makes his own biodiesel for his (large) motorhome. He distills it to purify it, which prevents fatty buildup in the fuel lines and engine. The whole setup includes a hot-water heater and a few of the 1" pumps from Harbor Freight, plus a lot of time (he considers it a hobby). There are many advantages to using purified used cooking oil.

But there are disadvantages from a policy point of view, and the main one is that there isn't enough of it. It's the sort of thing that needs to be done by individuals on the sly--if anyone tries to make a business of it for mass production, the costs could quickly escalate to be as high or higher than petroleum-based diesel. There would be a lot of transportation of fuel involved, plus large purification plants, and then retailing, etc. For one person with some time on their hands, though, it does indeed work.

With notoriety, though, the ability of individuals to make biodiesel on their own will quickly diminish. Why should restaurants give it away when they can sell it? And why should they bother with a guy who has a 55-gallon drum and shows up every month or so, when they can have it carted off by tankers every week without them having to deal with it?

Rick "thinking the cover on biodiesel may have been blown" Denney

[tubatom91]

My dad want's to do this. He drives a chevy crew cab diesel. with the price of diesel these days I'm surprised that this idea hasn't gotten much attention. If my dad did do this I'd wish that I drove diesel. (I drive a gasoline truck) [making my family's carbon foot print a size 13]

[oldbandnerd]

I'm not sure how this fact will fit in to this thread but right now most restaurants have to pay a service to pick up their used oil. It's against the law to dump it down the drain. Any commercial kitchen must put their used oils in a collectin bin to be picked up by a recycleing company ie .... http://www.yourgrease.com/images/bins2a.JPG" target="_blank .
There's already competition for this business as the oil is recycled into animal feed. http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/11/19/ ... 087027.txt" target="_blank . Valley Protein ( http://www.valleyproteins.com/" target="_blank ) is the largest in the area that I know of .

[Dean]

I have often thought of buying a cheap used diesel and the "home-brew" setup to make my own cheap bio-diesel...



But then I imagine if I did that, an all-electric car would come out within months after my purchase, negating all that investment and work. All-electrics have the cheapest fuel of all (though the vehicles themselves will be pricey to start...)

[Todd S. Malicoate]

an all-electric car would come out within months after my purchase

1974, to be exact:

http://www.hightechscience.org/electric_car.htm
Now, why haven't you purchased one of these? Could it be the 50 mile limit before recharging? The top speed of 40 mph?

All-electric cars have come and gone and continue to come and go...people don't like them.