Onwards and Upwards for Fuel $$$$$$

[Coloradobus]

OK. here's an ouch. Tonight on our local news, they said Aspen,Colorado has hit the $4.00/gallon mark for regular unleaded.. By the end of the summer they(Aspen city officials) are conceding that gas will be $6.00/gallon. Diesel here in Denver is costing around $3.05-3.15/gallon. Thank goodness we have a diesel car, 30mpg city, 40 hwy.

[Ray Davis]

Has there been any explanation for the sudden rise in fuel prices, other than oil companies making windfall profits?

[Coloradobus]

Ray,
Other than the usual excuses: fire at a Texas refinery (Valero), other suppliers down for broken equipment, routine maintenance, added cost for boutique fuels, increased consumption. It makes local news, even the Weather Channel, but no one is asking why. A comparison is made that motorists in London UK are paying eqivalent to $10.00/gallon. We aren't Europe or Japan. I see a barrel of oil as of this morning is at $65/barrel. But the meteoric rise in price we have in Colorado, almost a dollar in a month, sure puts a bite in the wallet. Wish we could raise our prices that quickly for our business.
Maybe Marathon will offer a "wind turbine" or "sail" option we can retrofit onto the "H".:D

[dalej]

Ray, I had heard from a very reliable source that the cost of putting out well fires has gone up so much that they have to pass the costs on to us. ;)

[Coloradobus]

Hi Dale,

Guess JDUB wil be in the market for one the new 3 slide Marathon H"'s.....2 million plus I hear to buy one.

[dalej]

I even heard that he will be sailing right passed the two bus boys.

[Jerry Winchester]

Yep, about one more row and I can go pick that new XL2 up. Crap, I may just buy two coaches and keep the one I have since owning two coaches is the "in" thing three would be better, eh Mike / Bob / Harry?

1207

[garyde]

It's amazing after all these years, we still here the same old excuses for rising prices and yet we all keep buying the stuff!

[win42]

JDUB you better start using those food stamps. I understand they are dated and will not be usable beyond their date.
Lew and I have a real problem with fuel prices. When we were kids we put five (5) gallons of gas in our Model A Fords for one dollar (1.$) Wha'd you young whipper snappers do?

[merle&louise]

The price of gasoline is rising, but has anyone noticed; diesel is finally lower than regular unleaded gasoline. It only took 4 years!:eek:

From my observations diesel fuel is about .20/gallon less than regular gas.

Since we all know that boycotts are not effective, does anyone have any ideas how to lower the price of fuel? Maybe Jeff Bayley could enlighten us on the advancement of his French Fry used cooking oil innovation!:D

How about it Jeff - how is it coming along?

[Jeff Bayley]

I wonder if coach owners would buy toad trucks with aux tanks and the filtering system and pay to have the minor mods done to let their diesels run on waste vegetable oil. One diesel pusher did it (not with the toad but by using his bay space for the required tanks). You can drive indefinitley for free as long as your willing to go around and collect the oil which is why I like the idea of mounting the whole thing on a truck. You use the truck to chase down the oil instead of hunting around with a full size rig. There are several web sites and forums where they not only list places to collect oil nationwide (chinesse restaurants are supposed to have cleaner oil) but they also have people that already have refined (and unrefined) oil that give it away. The collect more than they can use for their family (most of them have several diesel cars in the family that have all been converted to run on waste vegatable oil.

My idea (I've posted this before) is to run remote lines from the tanks in the bed of the truck to some quick connects on the rear of the bus. The still runs on regular diesel and once your on the road you flip the switch and convert over to running on oil.

Turns out the Diesel engine was invented to run on any kind of oil when it premered at a Word Fair around 1900 and the petrolum industry came up with diesel fuel after the fact. The inventor of this oil running engines last name was Diesel. The oil has more lubrication than diesel and the only down side seems to be collecting the oil but the restaurants give it away to you for free out of the speical hopper they have around the rear they collect it in.

It seems to me that retired folks (the majority of coach owners ?) would be even more inclined to do this since it gives them something to do assuming that you can find some entertainment value in getting around town to collect the oil.

I'm still working and when I weigh out the time vs savings I'm not sure it pays for me but the challenge of seeing if I can make it work has some appeal to me.

[merle&louise]

I'll just throw a thought out here for Jeff or anyone else who has an opinion:

What about instead of the customer driving around looking for used cooking oil - a truck stop would be built that sells used cooking oil ($1.00/gallon). The truck stop could collect the used oil from surrounding restaurants and sell it to truckers whose rigs are designed to run on the stuff.

First problem I see is: who is going to build a truck stop to sell used cooking oil to a handful of converted vehicles. And conversely, who is going to convert their rig to run on used cooking oil if there is no supply! Seems like we just hit brick wall #1.

It kind of makes you wonder though, how did the gasoline/diesel business ever get started? The same problems were present at the beginning of that era.

Who knows, maybe when diesel gets to $10 or $15 per gallon somebody may try it.

Any thoughts?

[Jeff Bayley]

Not enough critical mass I guess but if I were in independent trucker, for sure I would figure out the vegetable oil think. I men, you could have a 500 gallon installed in the front of your trailer easily along with the filtering system. For the fuel station, they would make a lot more money on the oil as I belive their mark up on the fuel is (at the station level) is very very low.

There are companies out there starting to pay for the oil from restarurants rather than the other way around (the rest. paying to have it hauled off) and they are taking this oil and using it for biodiesel or something. The days of getting it for free aren't coming any time soon but maybe a few years from now the stuff will finally get perceived as worth something. Right now it's a free for all and I suspect will be for some time.

This conversion would make a lot of sense if I were to get a twin diesel yacht to try to live on but the problem I see there is your limited to collecting oil from water front restaurants and how to get the oil from their bin to your boat. Not quite as easy as pulling a truck right up next to their collection bin. A 45-60' yacht probabley is a real hog and makes our buses look like Honda Civics I suppose. Sure would be nice to be able to take a cruice from FL to Mexico or Central America by boat (1,000 nautical miles straight across the Gulf from Tampa Bay I recall) and know your cruising for free.

Back to the buses, do you guys think that bus (or diesel motor home owners in general) would be willing to pay for a turn key converstion including a truck toad with all the fixings on it ? I think there would be enough demand for someone to make a business out of it and pocket $10k per transaction. Aren't any of your retired engineer types eager to try this for the hell of it ? Of course it makes the most sense for full timers or people that put a lot of miles (or would put a lot of miles if the fuel cost is stopping them).

Personally, if the fuel went to $10 a gallon it would'nt change my travel habits but I think there are others that would drive more if it was cheaper.........scratch that...........FREE.

[MangoMike]

At just one joint I generate about a 100 gallons a week in used oil I wonder if it was filtered and ready to pump if someone would pay $1 a gallon for it? RIght now I'm paying someone to haul it away.

I'm sure some regulatory agency either in the city/state/feds would have an issue my sale.

The jiffy oil change place next to me sells his used auto oil for 25¢ a gallon. (and no he doesn't sell it to me for my deep fryers).

Mike

[dale farley]

A few months ago, I decided to collect the cooking oil locally and manufacturer biodiesel for my equipment around the farm. Every place I contacted already had a company from Mobile, AL paying them a small amount for the oil. I was not able to find anyone willing to give or sell me the oil in any quantity that would justify the production of biodiesel. I am still looking for alternatives but haven't come with anything so far.

[MangoMike]

Dale,

The restaurant guys would probably jump ship for the right price. I can't believe that the company picking up their oil are paying hardly anything.

MIke

[Jon Wehrenberg]

There are vey large companies in the business of obtaining and processing grease, fats and oils from restaurants.


These companies pump the grease traps or empty containers of waste cooking oils and they clean the collected material by removing the solids, dewatering it, and then selling it to companies that use that material for such products as fertilizer, animal feeds, munitions, cosmetics, lamp oil, etc.

The theories sound great, but it isn't going to be a fuel source for us anytime soon.

[Jeff Bayley]

John-

Here are just two sites with hundreds of members that are in fact making it a fuel source for themselves right now. Not mainstream at the pump mind you, but they have it wired on the back end. This is not a pipe dream. I think the petroleum industry and media have done a sufficient job keeping it on the hush hush and it's probabley a good thing that more people don't do this and jump on the band wagon. As pointed out on some of the posts here, the oil is in fact becoming more in demand and some people are paying for it.

On the fill up for free site (below is the link) you'll find people that are giving away free oil becuase I think they've made a "deal" with these restaurants to commit to "take it all or don't take it at all" and this is why they wind up with more oil than they can use and they are practically beging people to take oil off their hands.

Both of these sites have forums.

http://fillup4free.com

www.frybrid.com

[Jon Wehrenberg]

There are areas not served by renderer's. Remote areas do not lend themselves to waste FOG (fats, oils, greases) collection. So the restaurantuer welcomes a place to get rid of his fryer oils.

I can't speak for others on this forum, but having served the industry by manufacturing grease traps I got to gain more than a passing knowledge of it. This is not a product you will ever want to put through your Series 60 without some serious effort. Mike will chime in here if he has the time, but even fryer oils, which are the cleanest of the materials that compromise FOG are nasty. Depending on the use of the oils, they can be heavily contaminated with various food scraps, or worse, flour from breaded and deep fried foods.

You will not want to contemplate what will happen if you try to pass that material through your fuel system or engine, nor will you want to contemplate the process renderers employ to clean those oils of the various contaminents, including high temperature heating and processing in a centrifuge. The materials must go through a rather complex series of gravity separators to get the crud out of them.

Somebody that needs a limited amount to run a Volkswagen Rabbit can tolerate the effort. He may even find very clean oils, because he needs so little relatively speaking. For your bus you need a lot. In fact you need about 25% more than the amount of diesel fuel you use due to the difference of BTU content.

Except for government buses where costs are paid for by taxpayers and the use of vegetable oils makes the tree huggers feel good while they ride the bus and smell armpits, it ain't for me.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Hor Rod TV did a show on a system you can buy. It was a plastic cone shaped hopper on a stand with mabye 50 or 60 gal capacity.

They had to process the stuff, don't quote me but I think they added lye, or something that made reaction, and after a certian amount of time drained off the good product and had a certian amount of waste by product.

They also had to install a heating element on the vehical for the stuff to flow through.

[Jeff Bayley]

Jon-

You make it sound like this stuff has to be refined uranium with a dozen centrifuge's working in concert to make it useable. It is true that it has to be filtered and you can't use raw waste oil but one way (so I read) that they get rid of of lot of crud and water and junk is by skimming the oil from the top down out of the collection tanks behind the restaurants. The WVO (waste vegatable oil) guys use what amounts to a small refinery that to do the balance of the filtering out but we aren't putting the fuel in the Space Shuttle so it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to burn.
I'm a student of this, not a pro and I've just done some reading on these forums but from what I've read the dang diesel engine was designed to practically run on any kind of oil. Peanut, corn, vegetable, (Hawian Tropic ?). Hey, there's a good one. I can try to make a Hawaian Tropic bus that runs on their stuff and smells like suntan oil out the exhaust. Actually that is the case with the used VO. It smells like french fries they say. The main thing is getting the water out and using several different micron particle filters (which probabley need to be changed frequentley and you would make easy to get to) to get the crud that didn't sink to the bottom of the holding tank you sucked it out of.

I guy already rigged his diesel pusher up with the filtering system, the holding tank (for the raw oil) and a clean tank (post filtered oil) all in the bay of the bus. He can filter the oil while the RV is moving down the road. He went cross country and back without any problems. The guys that make the kits for the car conversions helped him design and install the system and I think his was the first for a diesel pusher and it pretty much worked right out of the gate. He says that he can make some suggestions and improvments for any others that want to follow.

It's not for everybody but surely that has to be more than one guy (this guy that did it already) in the country that can make it happen.

[Ray Davis]

Jeff,

I can't speak for Jon, but I am thinking the issue is how good their filtering is. I would be willing to bet a diesel pusher could indeed run on this fuel which is not perfectly filtered, perhaps cross country and back.

BUT, I'd also be willing to bet that unless it IS properly filtered, that there will be long term damage to the engine. Damage that won't be discovered in 3000-5000 miles.

When I think of all the crap that ends up in waste cooking oil, I would be really concerned about puttting that in a $15,000 engine. Obviously, I haven't read your sources, and I don't doubt that they are probably telling the truth, in that it works.

But, I think Jon is probably more right than wrong about what it takes to really clean up used cooking oil. Enough that it won't do long term damge to a DD engine, at least.

Part of the issue is there isn't any long term studies yet on this topic. It is an interesting topic, for sure. But, I can hardly imagine where I would stop on a cross-country trip to pick up 500+ gallons enroute?

Ray

ps: Hmm, I wonder what it woudl cost to simply go into Safeway or Albertsons and purchase 160 gallons of new cooking oil? Would it cost less than current diesel fuel?

[Joe Cannarozzi]

We have an expert on the subject who is one of the newer members.

If you go to the public profile for Jeff and Roberta is says Jeff is doing Bio-deisel transportation? He could probably shed a little light on all this.

Jeff, looks like he is down your way too, Apollo Beach Fla. And you know the rules around here. If you come up with an idea, you own it, so get on it!

[Ray Davis]

This IS interesting, and I did a little web research on this. But, I will admit to remaining sceptical. One of the videos I watched was a guy selling a diesel add-on, which only had what amounted to be an auto-standard oil filter built in.

I can't believe that is enough to filter this stuff, unless perhaps you are purchasing bio-diesel from a company that has already refined it. I'll be interrested to hear how it works out for you Jeff, when you rebuild that Angola, and put in the oil conversion unit!! :) :eek:

[Jeff Bayley]

Ray-

Speaking of the Angola, there you are. My engine blew up WITHOUT any funny business and yes I was thinking about converting that one but what I'm going to do instead is convert my rolling showroom bus which is a cheapo Spartan chassis with a front control Cat. I have a three bays in a row which are empty from something funky they last owner had in their (a house A/C unit that was all rusted. Those bays are in the front and that is the perfect spot for the rolling refinery and extra holding tanks for the oil. That engine is much less costly should anything go wrong and that vehicle is also one that I'm more inclined to hire a driver for to use it more often all over the country and fly in to meet up with it. I'll use that as my test bed.

Regarding picking up 500 gallons of fuel, remember that part of my idea is to mount everthing in the bed of a pick up truck which would double as your toad and your chase vehicle for getting around to collect your oil. Going here and there with the bus to pick up the oil in unfamiliar towns is a buzz killer for me but getting around in the pick up for the same task seems tollerable.

Ok, here's THE site for the guy that did it in his pusher motor home and he is a member on Frybrid.com also. For those of you who didn't bother with the other URL's I put, this is the one to check and not skip.

http://www.liquidsolarpower.com/

[Jon Wehrenberg]

You can't equate Bio-diesel with waste vegetable oil.

If you are looking for cheap fuel why not just forget waste vegetable oil and go around collecting drain oil. Filter it a little bit and dump it in your fuel tank in whatever ratio turns you on.

The use of recycled anything, whether it is vegetable oils, or drain oil requires that you remove the contaminents. That is why renderers have what appears to be mini-refineries. A lot of the stuff they remove can harm your fuel delivery system or the engine. Like water. Or cleaning solvents. Or solids like flour. Or even bigger common things like food scraps. Or towels, silverware, salt shakers, etc. If you are that guy driving the Volkswagen Rabbit and you can select the best stuff available out of the gallons of the stuff that is thrown out you are talking about something simple. If the guy gets 30 MPG, and he only needs about 10 gallons at a time he can be really fussy.

Pull up to the grease bin in your Prevost and try to find 200 gallons of stuff and you will literally be scraping the bottom of the barrel, unless you have the time to grub the best 10 gallons from 20 restaurants every time you fill up.

If that is the case, get a national Jiffy Lube directory and get their used drain oil. It will still require a lot of filtering, and may still do a lot of damage to your engine and fuel delivery system, but it will be easier to deal with in large quantities than vegetable oils.

Bio-diesel is a pure, clean product intended for use in your engine. But ironically it is not likely to be cheaper than good old #2 diesel in terms of cost per mile.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Don't forget the tax man. You are not supposed to use fuel in highway vehicles that has not been taxed.

If the media hears of you and your luxury coach collecting and using restaurant oil and does a feature news prog. on you and the government sees it, your goose is cooked:eek:

[dale farley]

When I looked into producing biodiesel in early 2006, I was looking at a rather elaborate system which included plastic tanks, pumps, and filters. Lye was the key ingredient in processing the vegetable oil into biodiesel. Properly processed biodiesel is supposed to be cleaner, safer, and better for the engine than regular diesel, but there are several hazzards involved in the process.

A complete system seems to cost from $1,500 to $10,000 according to the capacity you want to produce. At that time, there were several systems being sold on eBay, but I don't see any at this time.

[garyde]

Jeff. I have to think that no matter what solution one would come up with, this is still a fringe fuel . Aside from how your Detroit Deisel might handle it (not including the new Diesel engines being produced for 2009 ), You still have to have a reliable resource when and where you need it. How would this product effect a generator or a Webasto heater?
If one is simply attempting to save money, I would determine how much $$ you would actually save, and invest in Oil futures or Corn futures to guarentee a fixed price.
As far as taking personal responsibility for cleaning up the Air, Cut back whereever possible on mileage traveled per year. Plant some trees! Recycle Cans, etc., Convert to flourescent lamps. Cut down on all paper products.

[Jeff Bayley]

Gary-

For the generator and webasco or Aqua Hot you still use your regular diesel. You don't put the alternative fuel into the main tank or change any of that. You install an aux. tank for the waste veg. oil. You start out running on the regular diesel because the veg. oil has to be warmed up (using it's own mini heater) to thin out the viscosity of it so it will flow. Then, before you shut down, you switch back to regular diesel again to clear the lines (you control all this from the dash with a couple of switches that run solinoids that make the switch).

The biggest problem would be if your engine died or you forgot to switch back and clear the lines of the thick stuff and the stuff cooled and all your lines were full of room temperature oil that wouldn't flow. That would be a real mess to fix and clear the lines, injectors etc.

Jon brings up a good point about the volume of fuel. I think you could pick up 50-75 gallons at a time easily. Mango mike commented that he produces 100 gallons a week I recall just as one example plus there are forums that tell you where cleaner oil is available in volume nationwide. The point is that if you don't have the waste oil your not out of business and you go back to running the way your used to. Your gen and other aux items like the aqua hot or webasco don't get affected unless you convert those too. I think the generator lends itself to conversion more than the webasco but I don't think I would try converting the generator until I saw the system working well on the main engine.

Did anyone look at that link I posted on the last post with the guy that converted his pusher diesel ?

[rmboies]

[Ray
ps: Hmm, I wonder what it woudl cost to simply go into Safeway or Albertsons and purchase 160 gallons of new cooking oil? Would it cost less than current diesel fuel?[

Ray, it just so happens that last week while grocery shopping, Bob said he wanted to look at the price of vegetable and peanut oil. I heard him say 'wow, no deal here!' It was more expensive then the gas/fuel at our pumps! Nice thought but not a good value for us here in SC. Maybe it would be in CA??

I suppose Jim will now ask me why Bob goes grocery shopping with me:p

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

[Ray I suppose Jim will now ask me why Bob goes grocery shopping with me:p

Deb: What makes you think, other guys will think, it is a bad thing for men to go grocery shopping??? :confused:

I do all the shopping in our family, grocery, clothing, kitchen utensils, well you get the picture. I do all the cooking and laundry, too :)

I be the mannnn. Besides Peg works 60 hour weeks, so if I want to eat, I gots to do it. :eek: