How realistic is it to burn vegetable oil in a diesel car?

Question

I am learning about diesel motors and cars that burn used vegetable oil instead of gasoline. I am asking if this is for real and if you know anyone who actually does this?

Answer 1

It is possible, but think about it...

almost 7 Billion people in the world.

How many vegetables would you need to power all of their cars?

Answer 2

It can be done. See the source.

Answer 3

The use of edible vegetable oil for fuel does not make commercial sense. Using oil from plants like Jatropha, which grow in semi arid otherwise unused land could be a possibility. This is being explored by Daimler-Benz.

Answer 4

I know a person who owns an old Army 2 1/2 ton truck with a multifueler engine who goes and gets the old fryer oil from fast food restaurants.

Willie Nelson runs his tour bus on used fryer oil, but he treats it first.  My friend Marc just filters it.

Answer 5

theres lots of pple that do it, in fact there was a show on disccovery not too long ago about a guy that only put vegtable oils and grease or sumthing in his ccar nad travelled accross the country withhout touching gas

Answer 6

I think it is better to leave that question to experts so that they can check out its fuel effeciency and whether it would be nature-friendly to use it before we put it into application anywhere.

Answer 7

Willy Nelson has been using veg. oil for years in his tour bus

Answer 8

Mr Diesel originally designed his engine to run on vegetable oils and Ford orginally designed his vehicles to burn alcohol.

There are kits you can purchase to prepare new and used vegetable oils to be run in your diesel powered vehicle and from what I've seen it isn't too difficult. It's even easier to convert modern gasoline engines to run on alcohol and there are kits available for that as well.

Answer 9

i do it but not the used stuff

i get it from the supermarket off the shelf then into the tank

i mix it 50/50 with diesel and have done thousands of miles that way the car just smells like a mobile chip shop

Answer 10

All oils can burned in a diesel, but never gasoline.

Answer 11

Unless you're really devoted to the technology and want to spend much of your time dealing with the engine of your vehicle instead of just driving it, it's not a very good deal at present.  The oil isn't all that cheap, and it makes a royal mess in the engine: the stuff goes rancid in the engine's heat, and you attract the interest of insects and such.  

The filters take lots of attention, and since the source of the fuel is variable and  unreliable, you may get some interesting admixtures in your oil, like water or heaven only knows what else.  The problem is that diesels smaller than those used for a ship are by nature rather finicky about their fuel, because it has to be pumped at exceedingly high pressures through microscopic holes in the fuel injectors by high-pressure pumps that don't suffer much foolishness.  So it doesn't take much to clog an injector, or fill a fuel pipe with congealed potato residue.  

You only learn how great a fuel petroleum is when you try to substitute something else for it.

Answer 12

As real as you want it to be and is feasible for you.

Give it a shot: http://smartflix.com/store/video/2534/Ve...

DIY and free yourself of ever fluctuating gas prices and dependency on foreign oil.

Answer 13

One easy way to do it is to run a separate tank and fuel line for veg oil.  The main downside to veg oil in an engine is that it gums things up when it's cold.  

If you run diesel at start-up and warm-up, you can switch to veg oil.  Then before you stop, switch to diesel again and flush out the veg oil before you turn the engine off.  Then you're golden!

Answer 14

Yes Virginia, it is for real.  On a massscale would prove expensive though, as you would have to dedicate vast tracts of aerable land for this purpose. Ands McDonalds uses only so much veggie oil to recycle. But if you are interested,, there are many web sites didicated to the change. start by looking up svo or wvo conversions on line.

Answer 15

Its not at all realistic if you consider that you are using food stuff to make the oil. Its ok if you are using old oil that has been used to deep fry or something but there is a limited supply so it is not more than a drop in the bucket as energy needs go.

Answer 16

There is quite a bit of information on this subject on the web.  There even people who will do conversions so that a diesel can run on vegetable oil -- vegetable oil has a different viscosity than diesel and gets gummy at higher temperatures, so vegetable oil won't flow as well at all temperatures.

Just yesterday there was a news story about an individual in North Carolina who was in trouble with the state's tax division, and the IRS, because he was not paying fuel highway use taxes on the vegetable oil he was using.

We will have the same issue with electric cars.  How does the government collect taxes to pay for road and bridges if people can just charge a battery using the sun and go out on a drive?

We will have new tax systems to replace the lost monies, count on it.

Ultimately, we will have the same problem with biodiesel as we have with ethanol.  We simply can't grow enough of the crops needed to create the fuel without giving up our food supply.

Answer 17

in the UK also long as you use less than 2500 liters per year you can use SVO as much as you like without paying fuel duty or VAT over 2500 you have to pay customs their bit. 2500 lits works our to be 45 ltrs per week just remember to keep your receipts for six years in-case customs want to see them,not only does it .lower your emissions but smells better as well i have done this for last couple of years if you use 100% svo you will need to fit a preheater to make the vch start but 70% SVO 30 Derv and the vch will run as normal