FordExcursions.com Forums
E. Long
 
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• Subscriber since 1/1/2001 |
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• Atlanta, GA, USA |
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• Registered on 1/23/2001 |
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• 2,229 posts |
• 1 Vehicle
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 Posted:4/22/2003 13:19 |
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Here we go folks. The answer to our mileage concerns. A co-worker sent this to me this afternoon:
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LOS ANGELES, April 21 - "I wouldn't do this to a $30,000
car unless I was confident that it would work."
With that, John Lin, owner of a Los Angeles fast-food
franchise, opened the door of an opulent white Ford
Excursion.
Powered by a seven-liter turbo-diesel engine that delivers
just 13 miles a gallon, this oversize S.U.V. seemed the
quintessential environmentalist's target. Yet soon, Mr. Lin
will be paying less to fuel it than he would pay if he
owned a Toyota Prius, which supplements gasoline with
electricity. As an added benefit, he will sharply reduce
the pollution.
Mr. Lin will not use a radical new mileage-boosting
technology, but rather he will use simple vegetable oil,
the same cheap, plentiful and clean-burning fuel that
Rudolf Diesel used to power his first engine at the 1900
Paris World's Fair.
Normally, a restaurateur like Mr. Lin would have to pay
someone to haul off the 10 gallons of vegetable oil used
each day in his fryers. The oil would be dumped in a
landfill, or perhaps used in animal feed. Instead, Mr. Lin
will filter his oil and pour it into a heated auxiliary
tank on the Excursion.
He will then start the vehicle on regular diesel, and after
a few minutes, when the vegetable oil becomes more viscous
in the heater, a manual switch will direct it to the diesel
engine. From there, the only detectable difference will be
the faint odor of French fries, and a noticeable lack of
diesel stench.
The change in odor, however, is not the only benefit to be
gained. In 1998, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
released a study on a fuel called biodiesel. Essentially
vegetable oil with methanol and lye added to aid
cold-weather flow and remove glycerin, biodiesel results in
fewer harmful emissions than petroleum-based diesel.
Carbon monoxide emissions are reduced by 43 percent,
hydrocarbons by 56 percent, particulates by 55 percent and
sulfurs, a particular problem with petroleum diesel, are
reduced by 100 percent.
Typically, biodiesel fuel costs at least as much as regular
diesel. But straight vegetable oil is essentially free; Mr.
Lin says most restaurant owners are more than happy to get
rid of it. And unlike biodiesel, it does not require
methanol and lye. It does, however, require a fairly simple
conversion system that consists of a vegetable oil tank and
a fuel heater.
A couple of years ago, after much online research, Mr. Lin
bought a 1983 Mercedes 300SD Turbodiesel for $3,000 and got
in touch with a diesel enthusiast, Charlie Anderson. Mr.
Anderson, a farmer in Drury, Mo., had just founded a
company called Greasel. For $500, Mr. Anderson sold Mr. Lin
one of his first vegetable-oil-to-diesel conversion kits
and coached Mr. Lin on installing it.
"I said, If it blows up, it blows up," Mr. Lin said, "and
I'm only out $3,000. But I installed the system, flipped
the switch, and sure enough, the thing works."
Mr. Lin found that vegetable oil led to no noticeable loss
in power or mileage. In fact, he said, it smoothed the
engine's idle. This came as no surprise to Mr. Anderson,
who has now installed hundreds of systems in a variety of
diesel vehicles - Volkswagen TDI's, tractors, large Dodge
four-by-fours and even a used Greyhound bus. In addition,
Greasel has sold hundreds more of its units to
do-it-yourselfers.
"Even if people are paying the same for this as diesel," he
said, "it's just so much better for the environment. A dog
can lick this stuff right off the ground."
If biodiesel or straight vegetable oil are so much better
as fuels, why aren't they in widespread use? Simple
economics is how Russ Teall, a biodiesel refiner and
president of Biodiesel Industries, sees it. "Basically the
cost of virgin vegetable oil is too high," he said. "It
costs from $1.65 to $2 a gallon. At the wholesale level,
petroleum diesel varies from 60 cents to $1.20 in
California."
Mr. Teall also says a lack of transportation and refining
infrastructure have discouraged a shift to biofuel.
But Joe Jobe, president of the National Biodiesel Board,
said this was changing rapidly as a result of smaller
refining plants and a worldwide glut of vegetable oil.
"The price of vegetable oils and diesels are beginning to
come closer because of the growing demand for soy protein
for food," Mr. Jobe said. "When you grind up soybeans, you
get 80 percent soy meal and 20 percent oil." Furthermore,
he said, biodiesel can also be made easily from waste
restaurant oil.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/science/earth/22FUEL.html?ex=1052035534&ei=1&en=1fa6564a05f0a0bf
-Eric
'67 Galaxie 500 - 390 FE, .030" over, FE to AOD adapter, disc brake conversion. The Daily Driver.
'00 Excursion - 7.3L PSD, LANDYOT Gen-II Radius Rods, Factory Tech Valve Body, 200K+ miles and going |
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Dan Nguyen
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• Yuba City, CA, USA |
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• Registered on 11/13/2001 |
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• 22 posts |
• 2 Vehicles
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 Posted:5/4/2003 09:18 |
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Check out this website for your own biodiesel cooking recipe:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
There are plenty of others for your reading enjoyment. I think startup cost someone said was about $800.00 to cook it and a couple of 50 gallon drums to pickup and store your final products. At a recommended mix of 70 diesel/30 biodiesel you can effectively recoup your cost in about 2 years, besides depending on where you got your used oil,(one article gets theirs from the turkey butterball factory) you can smell like McD**** french fries or turkey dinner when idling up in the morning  |
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