Re: Run on recycled cooking oil!

[Highwoodalfa@domain.elided]

In a message dated 06/02/2003 04:33:54 GMT Standard Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 21:27:13 -0500
> From: Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>
> Subject: re: Run on recycled cooking oil!
> 
> This idea really is as good as it sounds--I know a professor who runs 
> his old Volvo on the stuff every day and has driven it across the 
> country a few times.  We have a lab here that prepares it for him. 
> There are also more extensive tests being conducted that I'm not at 
> liberty to talk about, but the most interesting thing is that last 
> time I talked to this prof, he said to forget about "biodiesel," (as 
> they call the cooking oil fuel) that he was running his car on 
> unmodified sunflower oil now, right off-the-shelf from the grocery 
> store!!
> 
> Joe Elliott
> 
> At 10:57 PM +0000 2/5/03, alfa-digest wrote:
> >Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 14:06:22 +0000
> >From: Darryl N Davis <d.n.davis@domain.elided>
> >Subject: Run on recycled cooking oil!
> >
> >hi
> >  further to the alternatives to gasoline
> >  nice article on Top Gear (uk bbc motor program) last year
> >   on running diesel engines on cooking oil
> >   Take gallons of "used" cooking oil, filter out crud, add 5cc white
> >spirit to litre of oil
> >     and it will run diesel powered vehicl
> >     Works out about 1/10 of uk diersel prices
> >    They used volvo estate.and got MORE power than with diesel
> >   Added advantage is car SMELLs of your favourite restuarrant
> >     so we can use recycled Olive oil in alfa deisels and they smell like
> >     your favourite ristorante! (alfa content)
> >     or your mexican etc etc etc
> >   Good for famers too as they produce thr raw materials (oil bearing 
> crops!)
> >- -- dd
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
This is surely the way we should be going, but are governments going to 
encourage it?  Of course not, they would prefer to go on collecting the tax 
they put on 'proper' fuels, and the UK government is particularly guilty of 
this.  

There was something in our local paper recently about Asda (UK supermarket 
chain, now owned by Walmart) in Llanelli (a medium sized town a few miles 
from here) consistently selliing out of cooking oil, in fact selling more 
than any other branch in the country.  The police are patrolling the store 
looking for customers buying large amounts of cooking oil, and then 
presumably trying to catch them with the cooking oil in the tanks of their 
cars.

I met someone recently who runs his diesel cars on jet aviation fuel.  He 
says he can buy it for as little as 5 pence a litre (about 36 US cents a 
gallon if my calculations are correct).  Appartantly when they fill up an 
aircraft with fuel for testing/maintenance purposes, and then drain it out 
again, they aren't allowed to re-use it in an aircraft, so the mechanics all 
use it in their diesel cars.  I don't know what the situation is in the rest 
of the world, but here road fuel is taxed heavily, while aviation fuel isn't 
taxed at all!

I still haven't had the nerve to put anything weird into the tank of our JTD 
Sportwagon though.  Has anyone tried putting anything other than diesel in a 
diesel Alfa?  Any ill effects?

Chris Sweetapple
Highwood Motor Company
Swansea, U.K.
www.highwoodalfa.com
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