How a veggie oil car works

Image courtesy of iturnedgreen.com

Sure, you've heard of cars that run on used veggie oil -- but how do people get this oil and clean it and fix up their cars to run on the stuff? Now you can simply watch a short video on a new Web channel called iTurnedGreen TV to see how one eco-inspired guy turned waste into greasoline and got fossil fuel-independent.

 

 

Matt, a professor of political science and economics in the L.A. area, talks in this short video about how he converted his car to run on oil, and where he gets the used grease to power up his car.

 

While Matt's now-converted car seems to get around fairly easily, procuring and cleaning the oil to put into that car seems to be no easy task. Matt travels around to a bunch of different locations to pick up the used grease, and has to let that oil sit — sometimes for months — to let the dirty particles settle before putting it into his car. Plus, collecting and using old veggie oil's technically illegal for Matt, since he isn't insured to do this kind of work!

 

The amount of energy, effort, and space Matt devotes to the whole fuel-procuring and processing work is quite inspiring — but seemed a bit daunting for me. In fact, I was inspired to spend more time developing my bicycling muscles and skills so as not to have to deal with the long process. And Matt himself talks about how getting and making one's used veggie oil fuel is just not going to be an option for everyone.

 

Still, for those who have relatively easy access to used oil may want to give Matt's method a try. The idea would especially work well for a restaurant with a delivery service. Why not fuel up the delivery cars with the free grease coming out of the kitchens, thus making the restaurant's services a closed-loop, zero-waste process? Watch and learn. 

 

• Check out our transportation blogger's post on creating a DIY electric car. Really.