Posted on 06/26/2005 8:41:02 AM PDT by SJackson
ANTIGO - The smell of french fries is all in a day's work for Ben Hoffman, owner of Culver's restaurants in Antigo and Minocqua.
But some travelers might be surprised to catch a whiff of fries when his truck passes them during his commute.
Earlier this spring Mr. Hoffman converted his 2004 diesel Ford Excursion so it could run on waste oil from his deep fryers.
"Everybody jokes about it and asks if they can get a Butter Burger with that," Mr. Hoffman said. "But that's OK. I'm saving money, and that's all that matters."
Mr. Hoffman's fuel source saves him an estimated $100 a week and uses up waste oil.
The conversion kit cost about $2,500 and includes a heater for the vehicle's 45-gallon main tank, and a second 24-gallon tank for diesel.
"If you forget to run it five minutes or so on diesel before you shut it down, you're going to be in tough shape because it's going to be coagulated in the line," he said.
The extra filters and inconvenience of filling his tank with a funnel and bucket is worth the savings, he said.
"(With diesel), I was spending $80 every time I filled it up," he said. "Now it only costs $50 for the extra tank, but it lasts me a couple of weeks."
Mr. Hoffman drives about 1,000 miles a week. His Excursion is the second vehicle he's converted to use fryer oil.
"I read an article in Car and Driver about a guy out in California who was driving his VW on fryer oil. They were kind of making fun of him, but I looked into it more on the Internet and it looked like a pretty good idea - especially since I have a lot of grease I can use," he said.
He put a conversion kit in his own Volkswagen Beetle and put 20,000 problem-free miles on it. Mr. Hoffman sold the Beetle to the Stevens Point Culver's owner, who also fuels it with fryer oil.
Mr. Hoffman said conversion kits for most cars cost $600 to $800 and owners can install them.
There's a lot of waste oil at restaurants and food processors, Mr. Hoffman said.
Last summer, the father of one of Mr. Hoffman's employees mixed fryer oil with diesel to run in his tractor without using a conversion kit.
"Think of all the fuel you go through in the summer as a farmer," Mr. Hoffman said. "If you can save 10, 20 percent, that's quite a bit."
"You can also run straight diesel, but it wouldn't smell as good," he said.
Mr. Hoffman grew up on a farm and would like to see crops grown exclusively for fuel production.
"Anything that can help American farmers like that would be great," he said.
Another selfish, self centered individual, no concern for the condition of his Expedition's arteries at all.
too bad you cant run a motorcycle on biodiesel.... :(
I wouldn't get that crap anywhere near my engine.
Get a load of this (link @ #2)
The country burns something like 20 million barrels of oil and oil products a day. That would be a lot of french fries.
So is bio-diesel bad for the vehicle? There's some fuel out there called "grassoline" that's basically vegetable oil for use in diesel engines.
I was actually reading about biodiesel on the net last night, it is actually better for your engine than regular diesel, and can be made at home three different ways.
Well, if that's true I think this is a great alternative for a lot of applications. Pickup trucks, farm equipment..
I would keep my Ranger on gas but the F150 is getting a bit expensive to drive lately.
Its also a realistic one, im just afraid the Gov't is going to waste too much time looking into Hydrogen fuel cell tech. With the Biodiesel, gas stations wouldnt have to be retooled, and you wouldnt have to waste huge amounts of energy creating Hydrogen.
I'll bet kick starting one of those diesel bikes is a b!tch.
Anything that wastes huge amounts (money, energy,whatever) the government is in favor of.
All kinds of better examples of energy could be developed if that were the goal.
That's not the goal.
too bad you cant run a motorcycle on biodiesel.... :(
You can if you are in the military. USMC to be specific.
Several years ago a Japanese bike company--forget which one-- got together with the USMC and Brit's military technical college, Cranfield University--began working on a diesel bike.
The engine is a modified Japanese bike engine, the frame and running gear is a standard bike structure.
One reason to go diesel is that the economy is great.
The second is that the military wants to keep diesel as the main fuel because that simplifies the logistics tail.
And finally, diesel is more available in most overseas locations than gasoline.
There is a lot of work being done on diesel bikes. Also with Computer Aided Manufacturing, (CAM) new diesel lightplane engines are being successfully built and tested.
Isuzu has a new generation of automotive diesel engines that are designed to be quieter and less "smelly" than present engines are. Chev trucks use these engines under the tradename of "Dura-max," or something similar.
Diesel, whether fossil fueled or biodiesel is what is happening these days.
You'll be able to buy a diesel bike pretty soon.
Ben and I are good friends. I helped him make the "white lightening" to spike the bio-diesel.
I'll stick with 92 octane gasoline. :):)
The tax is paid at the pump, but what mechanism is in place to tax someone that is using an alternative (non-taxed) fuel.
To the best of my knowledge, there isn't one.
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