Flavored fuel--Culver's owner dips into waste oil to run vehicle

The Country Today ^ | 6-26-05 | Sara Bredesen

[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.

[eartotheground]

I would worry about particulate matter (i.e. french fry fragments). Filtering sounds like a pain. If it really works tho, great.

[Oberon]

Oh, the whole bio-diesel question is another matter...I was just talking about the availability of diesel motorcycles in post 39.

[numberonepal]

Check out what these guys are doing. They're making the bio-diesel in a washing machine with glycerine.

I've also read that mustard greens have the best concentrations of oil. A pretty significant difference from soy IIRC.

[SWake]

I've been reading up on this for the past week or so. Here's a chart that lists the amount of oil that can be produced from one acre of various crops:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html