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

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 2

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 3

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 4

Virtually all wrong answers, and mostly for the wrong reasons! The short answer is no, because your car has a common rail engine. On most mechanical injection diesels (ie an older Laguna 1.9dT), you can happily use up to 60 - 70% vegetable oil straight from the supermarket in your tank. Guaranteed. I ran for years on it. It is possible to use used oil, but it needs very thorough filtering & is still not really suitable due to molecular changes that take place when veg. oil is heated for cooking. It is best to clean used oil & then convert it to biodiesel using catalysts & a heated tank system. However, the conversion process uses caustic soda so biodiesel is prone to destroying seals in the fuel system & causing particles to be picked up from the fuel tank body.

Answer 5

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 6

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 7

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 8

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

Answer 9

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 10

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.