gather the used oil. Because I use the same
restaurant connections each time, they
always have it ready for me in containers,”
Elbek says. “They are very happy that I will
take it from them, because otherwise they
have to pay to get rid of it.”
Recycling used vegetable oil requires a
filtration system. Elbek’s system consists of
two large barrels, two pumps, a bag filtration
system and a water-separating system. He
says the cost to set up a good system runs
somewhere between $300 and $500. Once
the system is set up, he adds, the big cost is
changing a $10 filter every 100 gallons.
Modified diesel engines enable vehicles to
run on vegetable oil but don’t preclude using
regular diesel fuel or biodiesel. So, if you go on
long trips, you can bring vegetable oil with
you, as Reece routinely does, or you can run
your car on regular diesel or biodiesel.
Investing in the future
Earlier this year PlantDrive went to an
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–
certified lab and tested the emissions of a
2002 Volkswagen Golf TDi that it modified
to run on vegetable oil. The modified engine
exceeded the requirements of the EPA emission standards. But that’s not what excites
Begss and Reece most about the tests. They
push vegetable oil as fuel because it doesn’t
contribute additional carbon dioxide into
the environment, which they say causes
global warming.
“When coupled with the efficiency of a
diesel engine, vegetable oil as fuel represents
one of the most affordable solutions to carbon dioxide emissions presently possible,”
Beggs says.
Reece says that this approach makes
sense for many reasons. “If you agree that
global warming is the greatest environmental
threat facing the world, as we do, then it’s
important to recognize that we need to make
changes,” Reece says. “Vegetable oil is renewable and can be produced easily, locally, with
minimal capital investment from a wide
range of plants, and even from algae.” C
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