Cheap alternative to Diesel

vibe666

Anyone hear about using vegetable oil as a cheap substitue for Diesel?

There's quite a few people selling conversion kits to overcome the viscosity of the oil compared with ordinary diesel, and from what I hear, as long as it's not too cold (viscosity again) you can just pour the stuff straight from a bottle into the tank.

Only real issue apart from the thickness of the oil itself is that because it's not a road fuel, you aren't paying fuel tax on it which upsets customs and excise more than a little bit if they find out.

Apparently in the UK they have had to put together a police unit in some areas to track down the people doing it. rather appropriately they have been nicknamed 'the frying squad' because cars running on vegetable oil smell like cooking chips, but it's not stopping people from doing it.

Technically you could keep a log of how much fuel you use, and as long as you pay the fuel tax on it, you can use as much as you want, and at less than half the price of diesel (inc. fuel tax) and about a 3rd of the price without, the smellier option might be the better one.

Hellrazer

You can use vegetable oil(79c per litre)Kerosene(about 40 cent per litre) or any other oil which has a low viscosity.We regularly get cars in here that have been run on kerosene and the injectors in them are fu<ked.And 4 injectors can cost anything up to 400-700 each.

I wouldnt even contemplate trying it unless I had an ancient diesel that I wasnt too worried about destroying.
In the newer diesels with stricter emissions laws the injectors seem to get blocked up quicker than say a pre 92 diesel.

Clintons Cat

Jeremy Clarkson showed how to do it,on his show a couple of years back i forget the quantities but you add a small amount of white spirit <i think>to the vegetable oil and let it stand for a couple of weeks,have to notify customs and excise to notify them who then levy a duty on the fuel.

It seems a better option than diesel to me as its a renewable energy source,but does any one know any drawbacks?

Turner

I suppose gas might work out cheaper. It costs about E1500 euro to get your engine converted. If you own something which drinks juice like a 3 or 4 litre bmw you will see greater savings.

As for the cooking oil option, you could get endless numbers of takeaways to supply you with gallons of grease. Just make sure you filter it a few times otherwise the **** will clog the f<ck outta your engine.

Chief.

mike65

The Austrians went big on bio-diesel some years back, here I know Cork County Council converted thier fleet of bin lorries to run on the stuff, but unless the government gives it a shove with low tax it'll not take off...

Diesel Car magazine has run a few features on this subject.

http://www.ebony-solutions.co.uk/dcar_mag.htm

Check this if you're a diesel head

http://www.dieselnet.com/index.html

Mike.

Victor

Originally posted by mike65
The Austrians went big on bio-diesel some years back, here I know Cork County Council converted thier fleet of bin lorries to run on the stuff, but unless the government gives it a shove with low tax it'll not take off...

Well there is only so much supply at the moment.

mike65

There will never be enough material to replace all mineral
sourced diesel but many farmers across europe and elsewhere could be
encouraged to grow rape seed which converts nicely to bio-diesel.

http://btgs1.ct.utwente.nl/eeci/archive/biobase/B10306.html

Mike.

Chimaera

I did my final year project in college on biodiesel, so I'll throw in my €0.02 here.

You can run any diesel engine on ordinary vegetable oil without a special kit, but your power will be hugely restricted. There are many kits out there which preheat the oil to lower it's viscosity so it'll flow better and give improved power characteristics. It still won't give as much power as mineral diesel though. If you are going to use waste cooking oil from fast food outlets, then be sure to purify it first. This is a little more complicated than just straining out the bits of chips and stuff that are left in it - there is other stuff that has to be removed too. I never really looked into this side of it too much though.

There is another category of biodiesel though, known as methyl-esters. The procedure described above for mixing white spirits and cooking oil falls into this category. Essentially what happens is that some form of alcohol (usually methanol - hence methyl-ester) is reacted with the fatty acid (the vegetable oil) to create a methyl ester of the oil - anyone who's studied organic chemistry will know what this is all about - google should be able to help the rest of you . Any vegetable oil can be used in this process. The methyl ester has a far lower viscosity than the original oil. It is also an oxygenated fuel i.e. the fuel molecule contains a certain amount of oxygen which is not the case with mineral diesel.

Biodiesels are good from an environmental pov on a few levels. For a start, they are renewable fuels rather than mineral fuels which are not renewable (at least not at a rate which can keep up with our usage of them). They also have significantly better CO and CO2 emissions, due to them being oxygenated fuels, and they have lower smoke emissions.

In terms of power, methyl-esters are a mixed bag - some investigations have reported improved power, others have reported reduced power. My own research was inconclusive as I didn't get an opportunity to do enough testing. Ditto fuel economy.

On the minus side, they can do damage to fuel lines on some older engines - certain types of rubber and plastic can be dissolved by biodiesels of all types. If you were planning to run your car on biodiesel, you'd need to contact the manufacturer to check if the engine is compatible with biodiesel. Another big drawback is if they are used in worn engines - if methyl-ester biodiesel gets in contact with the engine oil, say goodbye to your engine. The oil and the methyl-ester will react and emulsify, seizing the engine in the process. This happened to one of the trucks Cork CoCo were running, and it cost them IR£12,000 for a new engine.

On the renewable energy issue, biodiesel as it currently exists cannot hope to fully replace mineral diesel as a fuel simply because the yield isn't high enough. As an example, even if all the set-aside land in Ireland was planted with the highest yielding vegetable oil crop, it would only supply 6% of our diesel fuel requirements.

As for the tax issue, I don't know if it's legal for the governement to tax people on biodiesel or not, unless specific provision is made for it in the finance bill, or whatever legislation controls fuel duty.

If anyone wants to read my report, go to http://www.csn.ul.ie/~dobrien/FYP_Final_Report.pdf
(usual disclaimers apply, etc).

vibe666

not sure about i Ireland, but in the UK the report I read said that anything used as fuel for a vehicle on public highways is liable to pay fuel tax on whatever it is they are using to run the thing. So I reckon even if someone was using brickettes to run their car on (not practical I know) they'd have to pay fuel tax on it regardless.

There's also an issue in the UK with farmers who use the farm diesel to run their road cars on, because they pay a different amount of tax on the diesel for tractors etc. than on the normal fuel for road vehicles.

JohnBoy

vibe..... that's not a UK only issue. it's the exact same in ireland. the customs boys tour around the country dipping peoples cars for green diesel (the exact same, but with a dye in it to distingush) cos it costs about half of regular diesel.

there are some heavy fines for using green diesel and even heavier for filtering it.

mike65

I can vouch for that, I get stopped a few times a year by Customs and Exorcise, as I drive a Van with agri product in the back.

Mike.