Follow the Adventure
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Overview
Why?
There were several factors that contributed to the adventure pursuing
the making
the world's first
Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) powered luxury motor home. At the very least,
it was the combination of newly realized technology meeting newly
realized dream of freedom.Almost two years ago, while visiting my crazy, dear friend Foster in
Los Angeles, he
told about some people he knew that would fill up their fuel tank from the
oil taken out of a Fry-O-Lator. Foster is the type of guy that the
character "Kramer" from Seinfeld
was modeled after. One summer evening in 1986, he passed an entire
spaghetti noodle so far up his nose, it came out his mouth, and he tied
both the ends in a know and declared a new fashion. So I was not too surprised to hear this story
from him, but
nonetheless, I was very impressed.
I then remembered that years ago, my
father told me how a diesel engine would run on just about any
type oil, -- even coal dust - and that it was first demonstrated at the
Paris World's fair fueled on peanut oil, but years of
living with cheap fossil fuels covered up that memory. How cool would it be
for me to get in on
this Used Cooking Oil action?, I thought. I am cheap, and I like
fried food. All I need is a Diesel engine and I am almost done!
Why Not?
Life happened, and I forgot about the excitement of this news. It was
about the time right before Hurricane Katrina struck, I had decided that
these rising fuel costs were annoying. More than just annoying,
they scared me. They were scary because they reminded me of how
everything we hold dear to our way of life is dependent on energy - and
America does not control (at least directly) the majority of its energy
addiction. I am not a survivalist, but I don't like being "bitch
to the Man" anymore than the next guy. I decided then that I
too was going to explore this crazy world of vegetable powered goodness,
and see if I too could drive on a waste product. At worst, it
would be funny, not too expensive for a life thrill, and at best, I
would drive for free on a clean burning waste product. What is
there not to love? Of course i had not thought out the fine
details of collecting and cleaning rancid, liquid puke from behind
dumpsters. No sir, free fuel clogged my judgment.
I began to
research the concept of WVO as fuel, and the companies that made these kits I heard
about. There were at least five or so outfits at the time doing
this. Of course, I would have to buy a
diesel car, which I did not have because I always thought they sucked, but that is secondary - the desire to do this would see that
through. After a bit more research, it became clear to me that
most people selling kits were more like opportunists than engineers.
I am not an engineer myself, but I was always the first kid in school to
fix the projector, and I seem to have an inane sense of mechanics.
Certain mechanical things that should be obvious to people are certainly
obvious to me. For example, you should probably not make hot fuel
lines out of plastic, make them out of a non-reactive, metal product.
sure plastic will work... for a while... I
started thinking about ways I would build my own kit. Maybe I
could build components so good, that I could sell them, since most of
the crap I was seeing for sale to the public was easy to improve on with
only a few minutes thought.
I would design an automated system with a small micro processor to
control the transition from diesel to WVO. I would use hose in
hose, not hose on hose. I had myself worked into a frenzy right up
until I found Frybrid on the web. Some bastard beat me to
it! Here was a product from a guy
who had already done what I had wanted to do. He built a first
rate, well thought out, but expensive system, just like I would have
wanted to do. OK, plan B: buy one of these systems.
I ordered the key components that Frybrid sold, and waited, waited,
waited. In the mean time, I bought a diesel car. I got
a super clean, 1991 Mercedes 350SDL. If I was going to drive
around for free, on a clean burning fuel, I would do it in the biggest,
heaviest, most luxurious car I could afford.
After about 17 years, (OK, four weeks) my Frybrid parts finally came
in. I spent the next three or so weeks, intently installing the
components, making my own fabrication from aluminum parts. I
made a cool control panel, since, after all, it has to LOOK cool! too!
and when I was finally done,
Here is the custom control panel I made for my veggie oil Mercedes.
I had built what I thought was
one of the
nicest, WVO powered cars I had seen. This was not some hippie beater,
but a serious, later model, last of the large wheelbase Veggie Benz's.
People on the east coast seem to be a bit behind the West coast. The word got out
in Providence, and the Providence
Journal ended up doing a story on
my groovy car. At least they thought it was amazing here.
Just wait until Rhode Island discovers the Jacuzzi, or the Avocado! I thought this was strange, since I did
not invent anything, but I guess it was so unusually to do this on the
East Coast, that the editors of the Journal decided to run the artical
on the front page of the Sunday paper. This is big! I got
whackos calling me from far and wide.
A Freedom-Machine
The Concept
Since the fun I had with the Mercedes, I become more and more interested in alternative fuel,
and waste vegetable oil in particular. I knew that WVO was never
going to solve the energy problems of the world, but I nonetheless was
fascinated in vegetable oil fuels and a whole, since they are
renewable, domestic and clean. Any effort towards that end would
be effort well spent, so what the heck? I think that while
dumpster diving is a cute fad, gets me to drive for free, and lets me
learn some choice words in Chinese, mom and pop Joe American are not
going to pick dumplings out of their local Chinese bufet so they can
save even a few dolloars a gallon. No, I beleive I am helping
break a catch 22.
No one will be interested in the expense of developing and refining a
practical means of developing high yield, non edible grade vegetable oil
intended for fuel use if there is no market for the consumption of such
fuel. At the same time, no one is interested in developing and
engine, oil burner, or other vegetabe oil eating machine if there is no
practicle way the consumer can buy easily available and inexpensive
vegetable oil based fuel. .This the catch 22. I happen to beleive
that vegetable oil is a great fuel. I like it more than ethanol
and biodiesel, though they too are both friends of mine. Vegetable
oil to me seems like, well, "Liquid Solar Power"
Last spring , I was trying to figure out how I could convert one of those
80MPG diesel
Smart Cars they have in Germany to run Veggie, but there was so much difficulty getting a SmartCar into this country,
I pretty much lost interest. Apparently these little 80MPG cars made by Mercedes
for use all over the world are considered way too
polluting to our American air. I guess those filthy Germans
don't care about the American air or environment. They make SmartCars that
according the the US, are simply dirty to
drive here. The Diesel SmartCars are illegal to drive on US roads. After
all, the 9 MPG, US made, V8 Hummer diesel must be far cleaner,
since they are legal on our roads. Can you just smell my sarcasm?
On an unrelated note, Anke and I had RVed, a few times by renting
those horrible, plastic 23' Class C RVs that are made of sticks and
staples. We really enjoyed the
freedom that it offered, especially with kids, but the quality of every
aspect of these vehicles was downright insulting. Most of the
components on these vehicles were by my standards, broken before they
ever left the factory. An electric switch to the light should not
move the wall it is attached to over 2" in from the pressure of
actuating the switch. Everything about these vehicles was the
cheapest, worst of the worst, but I digress....
Regardless of my quality complaints, we had a great time in these
things! The ability to drive and not
have to stop when the kids say "I have to pee" is quit valuable.
"I'm hungry", "OK, I will make you a sandwich", "I am sleepy", "OK, here
is a nice bed". We had an answer for everything!
Anke and I were really impressed with the sense of freedom we had,
especially when traveling with first two, and then three small children.
Wherever you go, you are home. I think another reason we liked it
so well is that RVing gave an usual place where Anke's and my polar
opposite interests could unite. Anke likes to "make house" and be
domestic more so than I, and I, in my ADD riddled self, can not sit
still, and love to drive, travel, see new things, eat weird foods, look
at weird people. In the RV, I could be driving, while Anke could
be cooking. Sure, this sounds like a 1950's Betty Crocker box, so
sue me!
Freedom. You don't like where you are? Move! You like
where you are? Stay for another day. Then see what the other town
has.
Of course, on night over cheap Lambrosco wine, Anke and I were
talking. "I love the freedom that an RV gives us, but you still
need so much money to pay for fuel if you want to travel around", said
Anke. "True", I said. The fuel cost is the most significant
expense when doing any real traveling in one of these, since you can
eat, shower and sleep right in the thing.
We thought, "How cool would it be to have a vehicle that is completely self
contained, BUT... how cool would it be if it did not need fuel in order to drive?" Wicked cool, I say.
OK, obviously we did not spend more than a few hours contemplating
before we concluded that we would need some type of fuel. We are
simply not going to wait for them to invent an anti gradational ray guy.
The next best thing
is a free fuel. Yes, a free fuel that is environmentally friendly
-- who wants all that guilt of selfishly polluting the world because
of your personal desire to drive a huge vehicle around for pleasure. A
waste product that is a disposal liability for the people who have it.
A fuel that is as umbilicus as McDonalds and Wendy's.
"A waste vegetable oil powered RV" I said. "That. That would
be cool", said Anke.
Of course there are always maintenance costs, but this seems to be the
closest thing to a "Freedom Machine" that we could come up with while
drinking our cheap Lambrosco. Maybe one day, if we decide to get
an RV, we can play with this idea some more.
The Details
In order to realize this vision of a Freedom-Machine, it had to meet
certain minimum requirements. If it failed to meet any of these, it
may still be cool,. but not as cool as it ought to be. Some
original specifications came to mind immediately:
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