Not too smart on a couple of fronts. First, he should have have adequate ventilation for his project, and second, you don't use an electric drill, especially one that sparks (!) to mix the lye and methanol with the cooking oil. It's a dangerous process, and you have to study the correct procedures for making biodiesel and follow all necessary pre-cautions to keep things like this from happening.
There’s no better teacher than “experience”............