Click, or maybe it was Clack, says straight vegetable oil as a fuel is for the "wacko fringe"
You all know Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the vaudeville act of auto advice. Also known as Click and Clack or the Tappet Brothers, the two have a talk show on NPR and a newspaper column. In their latest installment the brothers discuss biofuels. After having fun with BioWillie, the banter reaches straight vegetable oil (SVO). Tom says, "So SVO is still for the wacko fringe (go ahead, write to me and complain, fellas; I can take it).The brothers' Web site does have entertaining explanations about alternative fuels that are informative and opinionated. But go ahead and write to Tom, if you want.
[Source: Tom & Ray Magliozzi / nwitimes.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ray Holan 5:16PM (12/24/2006)
If saving major dollars on diesel fuel by using SVO is wacko, call me a wacko all the way to the bank. How wacko is it to keep spending much more money on fuel than you need to? They obviously haven't haven't spent time with a cross section of SVO owners. It may have been "fringe" at one point in history, but it is really more mainstream now. Many of the local SVO users are hard-nosed business types motivated solely by the cost-savings of SVO.
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bathtub gin 1:29AM (12/26/2006)
I personally just like the idea that the exhaust smells like french fries cooking.
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Bill 9:31PM (12/25/2006)
It is fringe in the sense that it's not any large scale solution for replacing petroleum based fuels. Whenever I hear a politician or activist repeat the words "reduce our dependency on foreign oil" I just wince.
If you've got the time, garage space, and the know-how to convert your car to run on used french fry grease, great! If anything, it solves a waste disposal problem, and I'm a big believer in recycling. But it's not a long term solution, and there will never be a day when folks drive an internal combustion engined vehicle to the local service station to fill up with SVO.
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chuck goolsbee 11:19PM (12/25/2006)
How wacko is it to keep spending much more money on fuel than you need to?
Well said, and my thoughts exactly. I don't do this because I'm hugging the planet or trying to be a good boy. I do it becasue I'm CHEAP.
Or as I like to think, a tribute to my Scot heritage. ;)
--chuck
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