Can a Car Really Run on Used Cooking Oil?
Can a car really run on used cooking oil? The short answer to that question is yes, although the long answer is a little more involved.
Everyone’s searching for a better fuel for our cars. Gasoline is expensive, not renewable, produces carbon emissions and keeps us tied to countries we’d rather not be beholden to. One possible answer is a fuel known as biodiesel. Biodiesel is a type of fuel that results when you run used cooking oil through a filter and then through a process called transesterification. The resulting fuel is a biodiesel that can be used in most diesel engines.
For the most part, you can’t just pour used cooking oil into your car’s gas tank and expect it to run. Standard internal combustion engines just can’t manage with that type of fuel. Diesel engines, on the other hand, can run on biodiesel without any additional changes. In addition, with a few conversions, a diesel engine can run off used cooking oil without having to process it into biodiesel.
Actually, the first diesel engines designed by Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil as their fuel source – they weren’t converted to a petroleum based diesel fuel until the 1920s, when gasoline and other petroleum products gained prominence in the automotive industry. In the 1970s, alternative fuels became a topic of conversation, particularly among those in the newly emerging environmental movement.
Used vegetable cooking oil can be found at a number of locations. While you can certainly use used cooking from your own home, you may not be able to produce used oil in sufficient quantities. A better source would be a restaurant, a commercial or industrial cafeteria or a food processing plant. While most businesses such as those listed above have contracts with waste management companies to dispose of their used oil, they’re usually amenable to entering into an agreement that will allow you to collect used cooking oil for use in your car. But all oils aren’t created equal – those in the environmental field consider the golden yellow used vegetable oil produced by Chinese restaurants to be especially valuable.
If you’re interested in converting your diesel automobile to run on used cooking oil, you’ll need to buy a conversion kit. The conversion kit allows you to establish a second fuel storage tank for the used vegetable oil, which must be heated before it can be used. The traditional diesel – or biodiesel – tank must remain. This fuel will be used to start the car and to flush the used vegetable oil out of the fuel line before the car is turned off. Technically, these conversion kits violate federal emissions laws – however, these laws aren’t usually strictly enforced.
Alternative fuel sources are definitely needed, and used cooking oil is one possibility. However, given the amount of resources used to produce the vegetables used to create cooking oil, it remains to be seen whether the use of used cooking oil – whether or not it’s processed into biodiesel – remains feasible. It is, at present, a nice way to recycle, but whether it would work on a large scale is yet to be determined.
