Someone was telling me that you can use vegetable oil in a regular engine? Is it that simple? Much of her science is totally bogus, so I took this with a grain of salt. And frankly, if it's big in Berkeley, I am really suspicious (having lived there for a number of years).
Vegetable oil won't work in a spark ignition (gasoline0 engine. It will work in a diesel, but not for long unless further refined to remove the sugars.
You can use straight vegetable oil (aka SVO) in a diesel engine. It requires installing a separate tank for the SVO and some "switches". You start the engine using regular diesel and after the SVO tank is hot enough, switch over to that and then switch back over to diesel just before shutting off engine. Some companies made the "switching" process more automatic. You can go to www.greasecar.com to get more info.