Comments on: How To Stop Paying for Gas and Run on Free Vegetable Oil in 8 Easy Steps

By: Rob F.

Rob F. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:48:18 +0000

Actually, he was born in France and died in the English Channel. If you’re going to tell someone to get their facts straight, it first helps to gets yours straight.

By: Andras

Andras — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:54:27 +0000

“Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to run on corn oil that he had collected on his Iowa farm.”

This is just a ridiculous statement and it undermines the whole article. If you get facts wrong at this level, you shouldn’t recommending anything to people. Get your facts right! Rudolf Diesel was a German and died in Germany, he NEVER lived in the US.

By: Phil J

Phil J — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:19:18 +0000

How about some fact corrections, Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut oil while he was working in Germany.

By: R. Turnage

R. Turnage — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:01:35 +0000

I’ve always heard it was hemp seed oil that he got it to run on first, because no one wanted to cook with it and it has higher octane. Subsequent articles usually obliterate the facts to avoid controversy. And I think that $5.00 a gal diesal may be part of the need for H.R.5842 and H.R.5843 before the current Congressional Commities.

By: Jenna

Jenna — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:30:29 +0000

Wonderful article! Interesting and enjoyable to read!

By: Roberta Beach Jacobson

Roberta Beach Jacobson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:53:23 +0000

Is interesting. I’ll have to chew on it a while.

By: Ziggy

Ziggy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:31:55 +0000

To the person claiming “HHO” gas improved you milage:

That’s impossible. Everyone who is jumping on this HHO bandwagon is being taken.

You see, it’s a simple matter of conservation of energy/mass. In order to make the HHO, it requires electrical energy to facilitate the electrolisys. The electrical energy is produced from your alternator, which is in turn converting a portion of the mechanical energy from the engine. What process is it that turns the engine? Combustion the the gasoline. So, in order to make the HHO in question, you have to burn gas. Even if you considered the process to be 1:1 (i.e. an equivalent amount of energy is produced in HHO gas that was consumed in gasoline to make it), you’d be breaking even.

That will never be true as the combustion of the gas in the first place has energy losses to waste heat, mechanical friction, hydraulic friction and just general inefficiency. In actuality, only approximately 10% of the energy of the gasoline, under normal circumstances, goes into moving the car down the road and making the accessories run.

Additionally, the energy density of gasoline is considerably higher than burning hydrogen and oxygen. Adding a current draw to the alternator to make the hydrogen and oxygen, for which, in a perfect world you’re only getting 1/10th the equivalent energy for that you started with in gasoline, would be better spent just moving the vehicle. So, in effect, whatever amount of gasoline you consume making HHO, in the best case, you’ve dropped your efficiency by 90%.

Don’t buy into the hype; the laws of physics just doesn’t allow it. Just think of it this way, you’re putting energy into splitting the hydrogen and oxygen apart, only to try and reclaim that same energy by putting them back together through combustion. Not accounting for inefficiency losses in that process alone, you’d only be getting a 1:1 energy conversion. It’s a waste of money…

Ziggy

By: aNon

aNon — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:19:30 +0000

Get your head on straight
“Plus it’s better for the environment, recycling oil and no carbon emissions.”
Burning = carbon emissions
Most oil taken from fast food places is recycled anyways to make items such as soap.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:04:03 +0000

Good article. I ran bio-diesel’d Mercedes and Volkswagens for about two years. The problem is, most people have already got contracts to receive the veggie oil from most restaurants and businesses. I would not advise anyone to invest in one at this time though. If you factor out the cost per mile, it is approaching what a fuel efficient compact vehicle will do (30+mpg). When I was running a mercedes, I was buying the cleaning processed veg oil from a trucking company for 1.75 a gallon (when diesel was still around 2.99 a gallon). When i started vegging, I could get away with at best .03 cents a mile in the Volkswagen and .08 cents a mile in the Mercedes. Now it costs close to .10 cents a mile to run the Volkswagen and the Mercedes are long gone. I can get .10 cents a mile with a little hypermiling in my Gas engined Volkswagen.

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:07:08 +0000

I was just reading that mass transit use is at an all time high in many US cities. About time for that to happen, although cities are struggling to fund the increase. I wonder if towns will take a peek at veggie powered buses…to your knowledge have any towns done that before?

By: Shari

Shari — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:10:28 +0000

I agree with those who say that finding free oil is a real onion in the ointment, though the article is interesting regardless. The important thing is for people to start thinking outside the box.

I like the suggestion to go back to riding horses. When I was a kid, we used to ride horses or sulkies drawn by horses to town for fun. We could buy groceries this way rather than drive our car. I lived in the country and this was about 25-30 years ago. The main problem is that the roads full of cars don’t facilitate this sort of transport. They’d have to be changed or rules of the road altered or there would be a lot of accidents from motorists who drive like speed demons.

By: dog food

dog food — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:13:27 +0000

hmm weed grows fast enough. a few male plants and you’ll have enough to make your own hemp oil processing plant.

By: Martijn

Martijn — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:33:19 +0000

You people seem to forget that the government will not easily allow this – it will miss out on the taxes it collects on regular fuels. You should realise that you are liable to get fined for this. (At least I assume this will be the case. I know for a fact that it is illegal to run your car on anything else than pumpbought fuels over here in Europe.)

When petroleum alternatives become available at regular petrol stations they will not be cheaper than the current fuel prices. (Environmentally friendly and cheap are not exclusive, just unlikely). It takes more resources to produce biofuels and thus the price will most likely be higher still.

While it is an excellent article, having people run their own oil based cars is not exactly viable.

By: ab

ab — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:28:11 +0000

A Volkswagen van, living with your mom and digging through restaurant trash bins for used oil. What a farfromlivin life. Why dont you shave and wash your clothes too?

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:04:10 +0000

I have always wanted a bike car, since I am too lazy to keep balanced for so long. Maybe I could lose weight. Wait I can run my car on Bacon grease. Double Bonus!!!

I got a fun one for you.
http://everydaynormal.com/?p=1

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:08:19 +0000

I have a question. While this is a cheap alternative to gas, how good is this for the environment. I’ve heard that using oil to power your car would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

By: A&A

A&A — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:46:58 +0000

I think we should go back to riding horses. At least then, we wouldn’t need to wasted energy, filtering used vegetable oil (fresh vegetables for fuel.)

By: Rabbit

Rabbit — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:11:50 +0000

Idiotic.
You’re assuming that you’ll find someone else with a vegetable oil setup where ever you run out. Get 10 miles from home, and run out of fuel? Oops.
Not to mention, I know my time is worth a lot more to me doing other things than running around gathering someone else’s used oil (you’ll need a vehicle to drive around and pick it up, btw), and then taking the further time to distil it and then actually fill up.

By: RodS

RodS — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:01:29 +0000

This is a great idea for the environment but not really for the pocketbook. As was mentioned earlier, grease is no longer free. In fact, there’s been a spate of grease thefts across the nation. The companies may have at one time been paid to haul off the grease but that time has long passed. Those companies now PAY the restaurants for their grease and compete for business (and have done so for quite some time now).

This article was poorly researched which is a shame as I have found much on this site that is great even for a digg/deli sponge site.

By: hobbs

hobbs — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:00:03 +0000

great job hippie