Green Options

I really want to talk to Colin Coon’s parents. I want to know what they did to raise a kid who would take on a project like this. I want to learn from them. I want my boys to learn from Colin.

Colin Coon is high school senior at New Gate School in Sarasota, Florida. He’s converted a diesel powered vehicle to run on Waste Vegetable Oil and began a two month cross country trip in his Green Machine that he’s named Norm. He wants to show people that alternative fuels work and that anyone can use them.

He’s also documenting the whole thing on ColinsGreenMachine.com with a blog. As of today, Colin is on day four of his trip and on the first three days, he’s done a blog entry at the end of the day. I like the entries because he’s being honest about how it’s going (not always so great) and it’s so obviously written by a teenager. “I look to where the plug goes in to the blcok and sure enough it is arcing and spewing flames and sparks everywhere.  Poo.”

Drivers of WVO-powered cars will either love or hate the work of Boylston, Massachusetts-based Owl Power Company. Owl Power’s founder and CEO, James Peret, has developed and launched a product they call the Vegawatt, a fully automated cogeneration system for restaurants, designed to run on waste vegetable oil.

Peret’s team says the Vegawatt system is more than just a basic generator. The device, which is about the size of consumer-size refrigerator, includes a turn-key waste vegetable oil (WVO) refinery that automatically transforms even the most disgusting used cooking oil into fuel appropriate to supply up to 25% of the electrical power a restaurant requires for lights and hot water.

I had a chance to speak with Ben Prentice, VP of Sales at Owl, who gave me the low-down on the Vegawatt.

Last week, The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the success of a city-wide holiday recycling drive, which looked to top the more than two tons of used cooking oil San Fransicoans unloaded over Thanksgiving weekend. The grease will go to power the city’s fleet of fire trucks, ambulances, Muni buses and other vehicles.

According to Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, programs like this can also put a huge dent in the city’s sewer repair budget, as kitchen grease is one of the major causes of municipal water pipe damage, responsible for over 50% of sewer emergencies each year.

When I was asked to write for Gas 2.0, I jumped at the opportunity to share some of the experiences I’ve had during my greasy 10,000 mile odyssey in the 1983 Mercedes 240D, with a diesel engine converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO).

I’m often asked what kind of oil works best, so here’s a quick reference guide to different kinds of grease for your driving pleasure.

Waste vegetable oil gathered from restaurants is definitely not all the same. Or rather, by the time you get them, they have not all been “used” the same. So far, over the past six months, here’s what I’ve deduced:

A Texas-based company has announced the “world’s first mini-refinery” for consumer use that can produce both ethanol and biodiesel from the same small machine at the same time. It’s capable of generating up to 120 gallons per day of ethanol and 450 gallons per day of biodiesel.

Consisting of two pieces of equipment — an ethanol boiler and the mini-refinery — the whole system can fit into an area of less than 30 square feet with 8 feet of clearance and is completely automated.

Used-cooking-oil, the golden-brown waste product left over from making French-fries, doesn’t strike most of us as a particularly valuable commodity.

But recycled grease represents a source of cheap energy to some, one that can be converted to biodiesel or used directly as a substitute for diesel fuel. Having collected waste oil for both of these ends, I can tell you I’ve always had a nagging suspicion that one day the ‘free’ ride would come to a screeching halt. It just wasn’t clear how soon it would end.

Some parts of the country are now facing fierce competition over this generally unknown but ubiquitous local resource. The Associated Press has dubbed it the “Grease Wars”:

Recycled cooking oil has traditionally been sold for use in cattle feed and cosmetics. But the segment going to biofuels has grown in recent years to account for about 20 percent of the used oil market, said Tyson Keever, co-founder of Sequential Pacific Biofuels, the state’s largest manufacturer of biodiesel.

Portland’s oil peddlers are now fighting over grease worth as much as $1.20 a gallon. “You have processors now in the metro area who are looking at using that grease for biodiesel primarily,” said Mike McCallum, president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant Association. “There are restaurants who are being solicited for the use of the grease and are getting some money for it.” The result in the long run may be more expensive biodiesel at the pump.