Video: Veggie oil explained easy
Gavin Shappiro sent us a very well edited video of a green hobby: driving a 2005 Volkswagen Golf TDI with vegetable oil. As most of our readers know, converting a diesel car to run on vegetable oil is not a difficult thing to do, and virtually any diesel car can run with it. Gavin's friend Chase Emmons, who owns the Golf TDI, obtains the oil for free from restaurants, which would usually have to pay to get their waste oil removed. The video also shows the important switch that is used to switch from diesel to vegetable oil, since these cars need to be started with regular diesel to warm the veggie oil.
UPDATE: actually, the owner of this car is Chase Emmons, and Shappiro created the video with him. Minor edits made to the story to reflect this.
Find the video after the jump.
[Thanks to Gavin for sending us his video]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 9:26AM (5/04/2008)
"which would usually have to pay to get their waste oil removed."
AFAIK those days are long gone.
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Throwback 9:42AM (5/04/2008)
Does running on vegie oil lower the tailpipe emissions?
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:55AM (5/04/2008)
throwback:
Veggie oil produces worse emissions. In some vehicles biodiesel produces worse emissions too, in others this is not the case.
Both of course do reduce non-renewable CO2 emissions, even when they increase trace emissions.
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mike 1:20PM (5/04/2008)
LS2LS7 do you have a source for your pollution contention? From what I've heard vege-oil is cleaner then diesel, esp. because it doesn't come with all those trace elements real oil gets from the ground.
But, yes, most American's won't be doing the work necessary to run on vege.
Just like burning oil to heat your house or wood. Wood is cheaper if you don't count your labor cost for splitting.
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Mike Z 1:29PM (5/04/2008)
That and let's remember that if *ALL* the waste veg oil were captured and used, it would represent less than 5% of total diesel usage.
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Speedmonkey350 2:21PM (5/04/2008)
Who cares if emissions are worse? This is one more step away from oil and another bird we can flip to the villains like Chavez or the middle east.
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Snowdog 3:56PM (5/04/2008)
Seriously folks. Waste Veggie oil is a curiosity and nothing more. 5%, try maybe 1/100th of 1%. Heck if the restaurant owners simply ran there own cars on it,that would probably end the supply right there.
You could run older Diesels on it. But the new clean diesels are more finicky and I hope you didn't need that warranty.
This is no Panacea.
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stockdad 4:20PM (5/04/2008)
There are companies in the Pacific Northwest that actually pay restaurants .10 a gallon to take their WVO. These companies then produce commercial grade biodiesel.
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Camalot 10:57PM (5/04/2008)
Just a few observations. Bio-Diesel has alot lower emmisions than petroleum diesel. Bio and WVO are ALOT cleaner and cheaper to produce than regular diesel. SNOWDOG, your comment about it being a curiosity... sorry to disappoint you. Take a look at this DEP Report from 1992. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf
The research has already been done. The data is there for everyone to use. Bottom line: if 700 square miles of land were developed across the US to produce BioDiesel from algae we could produce 1 quad of renewable clean energy. As a country we consume 90 quads of energy a year. Or we can stay in the oil crisis that we have been in for the past 40+ years. Oh and one side note: guess what algae eat for dinner? CO2...Wow we could solve 2 problems at once.
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Der Alte 11:20PM (5/04/2008)
So where is this miracle algae biodiesel? It supporters have talked it up quite a bit yet have not been able to produce any algae derived biodiesel in any great quantities.
When will people get it out of their heads that there is no silver bullet cure here?
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ryan 5:03PM (5/05/2008)
It seems as though a couple users perhaps either didn't watch the actual video, or maybe just didn't pay close enough attention. The guy in the movie comes out and says, quite clearly, that WVO is never going to catch on. Most people have no interest in dumpster diving. Anyone with half an iota of intelligence can very easily surmise that there is a very small supply of used vegetable oil. So, while it is not a panacea by a long shot, it is something that should be used. The three Rs... reduce, reuse, recycle. WVO happens to be the second one.
I personally own a TDi, but have yet to even consider going WVO. I just like knowing that I have the option if fuel prices REALLY skyrocket. Yeah, even at $4 something/gallon, fuel is still cheap.
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brian hague 12:40PM (5/05/2008)
I own a TDI, and I would never run WVO... they have a ring sticking problem, and putting WVO in it would just make the problem worse...
Not to mention you can kiss your 10,000 mile oil changes goodbye. I highly doubt WVO is good for the turbo as well...
no matter how hard you try, the WVO will get past the rings (and into the rings) and cause mass destruction... very bad things happen in less than 60,000 miles on TDIs (even worse on PDs!) that run WVO
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trevor 1:09PM (5/05/2008)
Running on grease is fantastic. 99 suburbaban, runs great, kit by greasecar.com. Great hobby that takes some work, but its a blast. Just rememeber to pay your taxes as per your state highway taxed-fuel laws, NC is a $1000 fine. Pick a restaurant that changes there grease often. Wontons smell better than french fries!
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why not the LS2LS7? 6:31PM (5/05/2008)
The trace emissions in Diesel don't come from the impurities in the fuel. Even when sulfur was in the fuel it only lead to more soot, not gaseous emissions. It was removed (like with gas cars) so that the sulfur wouldn't clog tailpipe emissions devices (catalytic converters).
Read the article on here about WVO from the Jetta TDi forums where it points out that it's very difficult to not damage your engine long term on WVO.
BioDiesel doesn't share these problems, although of course it isn't as cheap.
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Chase 8:34AM (5/09/2008)
Hello everyone.
I'm Chase from the video.
A couple of things:
WVO can still be had for free in many parts of the country and restaurants do still have to pay to have it hauled in those parts too. That is changing, and free WVO will indeed be a thing of the past relatively soon.
As of today, I have 96K miles on my PD. Bought it brand new in '05 and had the kit put in the day after.
If you want some more detail on my procedures, check here and in the sub links:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=208276
Anyway, thanks to Gavin for taking my babbling nonsense and turning it into something nice and professional. It was all him.
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Terri 9:52AM (5/09/2008)
Great blog and interesting comments. I just wrote about using veggie oil in my blog and I agree that whilst it's a small contribution to reducing fossil fuel oil use it should not be discounted. It’s wonderful to see individuals take control of things in their lives and choose to move out of the compliant systemic way of doing things – waiting for the right leglislation or govt support. Using WVO is a small contribution to change but it is a people power movement that is a symbol of a far greater transformation in the world. As long as we keep looking for the ONE great solution we will be blind to the thousands of creative solutions that used together will create a joyful, sustainable and clean planet! Go veggie oil!!!
To read about the used veggie oil conversion process from a Caribbean perspective check my blog http://www.caribbeanlandandproperty.com/blog/index.php?/archives/74-Engines-That-Smell-of-French-Fries!-Using-Vegetable-Oil-as-Fuel.html#extended
Onelove
Terri
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