Students Gas Up Buses with Fryer Oil

Washington Post ^ | March 16, 2004 | Leef Smith

[cogitator]

Students Turn to Fast Food for Cleaner Fuel Recipe
Va. Chemistry Class Creates Biodiesel Out of Used Fry Oil

Excerpt:

"We were interested in putting together a hands-on project to enhance chemistry" lessons, Peery said. "I was booting around the Internet when I found information on biodiesels. I thought, 'How hard could this be to make?' "

Apparently, not too hard for junior high school students. Using two-liter plastic soda bottles -- affectionately known in biodiesel circles as the "Dr Pepper technique" -- the teenagers combined a prepared mixture of lye (sodium hydroxide) and methyl alcohol with the waste vegetable oil from Burger King.

Shake it up, let it sit overnight to separate and two products emerge: biodiesel (methyl ester) and glycerin (if you're thinking soap, you're right, but the kids discarded that part). Then they cut their fuel with 40 percent regular petroleum diesel and fed it to the bus.

[cogitator]

Another way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil (except for the fact that a lot of this oil is used to cook French fries).

Does anybody have any estimates on how much fryer oil is used and discarded in this country every year? I have to imagine it's a substantial volume. The article says that 25 million gallons of biodiesel were produced last year, but what's the potential production volume?

[AreaMan]

In 1900, Rudolf Diesel presented an engine which ran on peanut oil and wisely stated in 1912 that, "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuel may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum and the tar products of the present time".

FROM: http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=CURRI&ARTICLE_ID=197473&VERSION_NUM=1&p=17

A few years ago a few people took a coast to coast trip in the U.S. in a diesel fueled only with fry oil they gathered along the way from truck stops and restaurants.

[muleskinner]

Why is this news? Oh, the Wash Post printed it. There are already some companies doing this. If you have a diesel you add an extra filter and some other stuff. Easy. Free fuel, if you want to ask the restaurants for their used cooking oil. They may even pay you to take it.

I know a guy involved in one of the companies... will report back with actuals.

[biblewonk]

That's always my first question too.

[Cobra64]

...with the waste vegetable oil from Burger King.

Uh oh. Send in the fatso-Nazis. This will cause the bus to become obese and lead to heart complications. Further, are the containers labeled showing carbs, cholesterol, sodium, etc. content?

[steve50]

A guy converted a 57 GMC pickup to run a 4/71 Detroit Diesel on this stuff 30 years ago. Drove it about 800 mile every fall to get 1 1/2 tons of lump coal from a mine I was running. It would run on about anything as long as it was filtered well. That 4 cylinder diesel sticking out of the hood of that old pickup was something to see.

Biodeisel makes sense, but the best plant for the process is verboten. Henry Ford had plans to go this route in the late 20's.

[cogitator]

Why is this news?

I think it qualified as news because it was an eighth-grade science project that demonstrated how easy this is to do. As the article noted, biodiesels are being produced in this country, which isn't news, but the possibility of growth in this sector (and the use of waste fryer oil rather than pure vegetable oil) might also be news.

[cwb]

Exactly. In fact, Daryl Hannah is a big proponent of this technology as she tours the country promoting it. A seh said, when her vehicle goes by, it smells like someones cooking frech fries or something.

[JimDingle]

I think Homer Simpson may need to get back in the grease business

[txhurl]

BUMP!!

[expatpat]

I'm not sure why they need the chemistry. In the UK, they were using used cooking oil directly in their diesel cars. However, the government came down hard on them -- because they were avoiding the fuel tax!

[CajunConservative]

Grassolean

This is the one Darryl Hannah promotes. As far as the green stuff I could care less, but from a practical point of view, this could have potential.

[mvpel]

That's me retirement grease!!!

[bigfootbob]

"Biodeisel makes sense, but the best plant for the process is verboten."

Could that verboten plant be HEMP?

[bk1000]

A related story.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040315/people_nm/leisure_young_dc_3

[Between the Lines]

The greece collected from restaurants, called yellow greece, has been recycled even before the word recycle was popular. Yellow greece goes into the manufacture of soap, makeup, clothing, rubber, detergents and gunpowder, its principal use is as a livestock feed additive to make the feed less dusty. Yellow greece is even traded on the commodities markets. The current market price for yellow grease ranges from 15.5 to 16 cents a pound which comes to well over $60 per barrel. So you can see how it is cheaper to buy crude oil over yellow oil as both will need to be refined for use as diesel.

A Recipe for Biodeisel

[Chewbacca]

While this is a cool experiment, be careful about promoting the use of vegetable oil for automobile use.

Next thing you know the politicians will be adding a road tax to all oils which can be burned in a diesel engine.

You may end up paying a road tax to cook your food at home.
Not such a crazy idea to money hungry politicians.

[trebb]

I'm against it - how can we be sure that they can figure out how to filter out the cholesterol from the exhaust? How many clogged arteries will this cause? What if they discover how to use animal fat - won't that result in the slaughter of millions of innocent animals (not to mention purposely making them fat and lowering their self-esteem)? This could be disasterous and speed up global warming or something.

No sarcasm here folks - just getting in touch with my DimocRAT side - hurts too ;-()

[oyez]

bfl

[cwb]

From what I understand, it is still the vegatable oil engine, is it not? She was even talking about how she has to special order the veg-oil from distributors...and how it smells like a kitchen when she runs the vehicle.