Vegetable Oil For Fuel

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Jeff, Far be it from me to tell you not to do it. At my age and with my outlook on life I would not. You however have what appears to be a great desire, a specific need and the means to make it happen. I would encourage you to line up your supply sources with firm contracts before you procede. Endeavers such as this are all about the details! GO FOR IT and GOOD LUCK. I hope it works out. JIM

[Jeff Bayley]

I can't tell you how shocked I am that there has been so little resistance to this concept and also surprised that this topic has eviendetly not been gone over prior. I thought for sure you guys would have 6 ways to Sunday to shoot this thing full of holes. Jon has posed the only plausible concern being that if the engine coasts to a hault for some reason with fat in the lines then your SOL once the fat cools and solidifies. Under normal operation of course what happens is that you switch back to diesel for a few minutes prior to shutting down.

The idea of having several "stages" on the supply truck is good. Would take a lot less time to metl 35 gallons of fat until the balance got up to operating temperature. This system only makes sense of course if your either logging lots of miles OR if you've given up on the bling award and want to have bragging rights at POG III. Someone has suggested selling the idea or something to that effect. I don't think I have the time to make a business out of it but I would be a customer RIGHT NOW if someone said they could sell me a pre-provisioned truck with tanks and a refinery in the bed of the truck and show me the ropes of collecting used vegetable oil. Maybe that IS a business for someone. Sounds like the next best thing to being a Green Peace member to save the whales in the event you can't get away to ride shotgun on an inflatable in the oceans.

To the part timer, this obviously only makes sense if you've got an interest in it as a hobby or topic of conversation. I can imagine that if I were an independent truck driver this would make even more sense.

[merle&louise]

Would a hybrid Prevost work? Just like a hybrid car or truck.
Maybe a small 150 hp diesel in combination with an electric motor.
The Toyota Prius gets 60 mpg in the city and 51 mpg on the hiway.

Could the generator be used to charge the batteries?

How would you determine how many batteries would be needed?

Golf carts seem to run fine all day on the golf course, why couldn't a bus?

I'll bet the CG owners would love to see a Prevost plugged into shorepower to recharge all of those batteries!
If they like to charge $2.00 for the extra person, what do you think they would charge .....

[Jeff Bayley]

I got around the reading a portion of the thread of the guy who had the
Bluebird wired for vegetable oil and here is a highlight from his posting. This is the guy that used $50 of diesel coast to coast. If you care to read the entire thread it can be found at the link below with photographs of the system on board the Blue Bird.

http://www.frybrid.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6600

The forum is like this forum in the club mentality sense and the guy had offers out the ying yang from his fellow enthusists offering free, pre-fitered oil (fuel) along the way. Some of them had so much they needed to get rid of some they said. Crazy that this thing seems to work. This guy didn't carry a toad with the set up like I am suggesting. He had everything built right into the coach including the hose on a reel to suck up the oil. What people do is suck from the top of a given tank and bybass the need to filter more than is neccessary becasue the food pieces and water are mostly at the bottom. Filtration still a mandatory step but you can imagine how much more so if you had all the settled junk to also filter. The variation of the oil or lack of consistancy doesn't appear to be an issue.


(begin quote)
Hello all.
I am writing this from BC, Canada, after completing our first day running on our newly converted Elbee!

I am happy, and perhaps a bit amazed, to report that the VO system is running perfectly. I do mean perfectly. I have been testing it all day, comparing full throttle hill climbs on SVO vs. Diesel and back, and I can say that this conversion is 100% flawless. It is simply impossible to tell the difference between the two fuels. In fact, it has been running so well, that I had the sick fear that Chris and Forrest actually faked the whole install and made the little light turn green, just to get me the hell out of their shop.

However, sure enough, the diesel tank fuel gauge did not move and the VO gauge ever so slightly declined, not to mention that wonderful “kitchen smell” permeating the air from the 11 liter Cummins engine! 400HP of Vegetable Goodness. What a goof to get so much power from grease!

Chris did an amazing job! I am so glad I decided to go with Frybrid to do this conversion. World class work -- and I am snobby and skeptical of everyone, so I really mean it when I say, this conversion ROCKS!!!

Thank you for all your offers of oil thus far. So far, it looks like I am not going to go south enough to take anyone up. Of course, I may change my plans if I can not find any sources further North.

[MangoMike]

We'll have to rename them:

Fryvost.

Jeff, You may be on to something. I think you should push ahead. Again, free oil at my stop.

Mike

[Jeff Bayley]

Here are some a few points of interest on the topic from the www.frybrid.com web site.

Biodiesel (which we are not using here) requires that the fuel is modified each time it is collected. SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) systems modify the vehicle so that the unmodified fuel can be used. The making of biodiesel requires that oil is collected and filtered, then heated, mixed in exacting proportions with lye and methanol (caustic and explosive substances) and that the resulting glycerin byproduct is disposed of. Failure to properly titrate the mixture will result in soap. SVO requires only that the oil is collected, filtered and dewatered.

Waste oil MUST be filtered and dewatered before being put in the vehicles fuel tank, if anyone tells you that you can simply pump waste oil from a dumpster, through a filter and into your tank, they are either very ignorant or simply lying in order to sell you something. Simply pumping oil through a filter will damage the injectors, injection pump, fuel pump eventually. Doing so is a form of mechanical "Russian Roulette" and just as with "Russian Roulette" catastrophic failure will occur, it is not a matter if "IF", but of "When".

We strongly encourage the formation of vegetable oil co-ops to spread the time and expense of collecting and processing oil. Look at our Vegetabe CO-OP Guide for information about starting such a venture.

What kind of vegetable oil can I use?
Any kind of vegetable oil that you can collect, filter, dewater, and pump into your tank. The Frybrid system can handle hydrogenated oil and even animal fats, however you may find it difficult to collect and process these types of fat.

What if you can't find vegetable oil?
The Frybrid system is a dual-fuel system; The existing diesel circuit is left in place. The engine is both started and shut down on diesel fuel and can operate using the diesel tank at any time. If you do not have vegetable oil available or are lending your vehicle to someone not familiar with the system, all you need to do is flip the override switch and the vehicle operates just as any other diesel vehicle.
(end excerpt)

I think the guy with the Bluebird that had so many people offering to give him fuel coast to coast was partially because it's so niche that they don't have much demand for other users getting into their supply. I guess once you get into the swing of things that the pick up of waste of oil and filtering of it is fairly simple. Some of these users have 3 vehicles that run on the juice. Simple enough for others to give their supply away it seems. These guys encourage the formation of co-ops where people exchange the oil with each other in this manner. Mango, I'm sure you could put a post on this Frybrid site (free to join) and get someone local that would take the oil off your hands. Might be interesting for you to peer into their world this way perhaps. There goes my fuel supply.

Being able to pick up the oil like this is the next best thing to swinging into a regular fuel stop. Eliminating the dumpster diving, so to speak, goes a long way to making the concept practical.

Here's another link to a map that shows where the offers of fuel came in from for this Bluebird owner that ran on waste vegetable oil.
http://www.frappr.com/stevelsprogress

[Jon Wehrenberg]

FWIW, used fryer fats and oils are recycled all over the country. I haven't been involved for about 7 years, but at the time when I was actually working there were companies that picked up the grease from restaurants and processing it so it could be resold for the manufacture of munitions, lamp oil, animal feeds, and even cosmetics. Its final use was determined by the market in the local region. It is a big business and some companies are national, using sophisticated trucks to remove and separate the fryer grease from the grease trap grease and sewage.

The process is much more complex than the posts above would suggest. Initial processing involves heating to very high temperatures to begin separation and removal of water and solids, a centrifuge to further remove solids, and other steps to reach the level of purity required by the specific market.

Lest you think you can just pour Mango's fats and oils in a tank consider that if the product was so easy to use as fuel every restaurant in the country that generates this product would be using it as a heat source, just like bus and truck service centers use drain oil as a heat source. If I were to guess, just the suspended flour in Mango's fryer grease would plug the fuel filters before a tank of this stuff was run through the engine without some serious removal efforts.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Also! What of the road tax issues and permits and regulations to manufacture and process fuel and it's transport and EPA compliance?

[Jeff Bayley]

Jim- Here is the link that answers that question: http://www.frybrid.com/faq.htm#legality

I suppose the arguement could be made that your transporting used vegetable oil, not fuel. ?? I wouldn't let a pesky old thing like the letter of the law stop me.

[win42]

Gentlemen I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you! We will collect road tax on each gallon you use.(and even use some of it to actually improve the roads) Of course we would require you to have a catalytic converter on your exhaust to prevent odor polution. The solid material extracted in your filtering process would have to be deposited in a hazordous waste center with fees paid by you. Any savings from this process over the normal fuel costs would naturally have to be taxed as normal income. Please report the progress on this endeavor and any other cost saving prospects directly to the IRS,EPA,ITC andCongress. Remember were here to help.