Veggie Conversion

Patience currently can run on biodiesel or regular diesel. The Baltimore Biodiesel Cooperative is 1.5mi from my house, I registered with them & will pay "non-member" rates which are $0.75 more per gallon. If I paid $100 for a one-year membership, I'd pay regular price, which is currently $3.25 for B99.9, which is 99.9% biodiesel, 0.1% regular diesel.

My friend Will recommended some guys to do my veggie conversion: vegpower.com, who used to be used in Ithaca, and now they are mainly in Northern NJ, outside of NYC.

I gave them the specs on Patience & requested a conversion quote before I bought her. Gregg Wicken  at vegpower spoke to Emily (who then still owned Patience) & he spoke to me, confirmed that the van could be converted & he was working on the quote. I got the quote the following Tuesday, 3/16. The quote is $3,461.62 & I will describe in my own terms. In short: It is a fancy conversion with bells, whistles, safeguards.

My Understanding of How Veggie Conversion Works:

Your standard diesel tank remains. A second tank, for veggie oil (in this case, 15-gal) is put inside the car. A new fuel "hole" is added to the car's exterior, to pump into. You start driving on diesel, which warms up the veggie tank: The veggie oil kind gels/gunkifies in cool weather, and you do NOT want that going through your engine. Think of after you fry bacon, you sit & eat breakfast, and then you go back to the pan and the grease has hardened. But if you were to turn the pan on, it would liquify. Ok? Well, my veggie tank will have heating coils in it. When I start driving on diesel & the coils heat up the veggie oil. In a few minutes, the temperature of the veggie oil is high enough for me to press a button on the dashboard to switch to veggie oil. I'll have a temp gauge for the veggie oil tank on the dashboard, which tells me when I can switch over. Before I stop driving, I'll need to switch back over to diesel/biodiesel, so that the diesel/biodiesel fluid can flush out all the veggie oil from the engine, etc. -- you don't want that veggie oil sitting around & getting gunky when you turn the car off. 

Wait, What Do I Mean By "veggie oil"?

I'd be using waste veggie oil (WVO), which would be oil already used by restaurants in their fryers. When restaurants empty their fryers of this veggie oil, it usually goes in a dumpster out back, which may be owned by & emptied by a removal/disposal company. The restaurant probably has a contract with a company who they pay to take this grease away. This company might own the dumpster out back, and the company charges based on how much oil they remove from the dumpster. So, if you are taking from this dumpster, you are stealing from the removal company & they are not happy. The restaurant may tell you that you can take the oil from the dumpster, but once the oil goes in that dumpster, it really doesn't belong to the restaurant anymore, so the restaurant doesn't have legal authority to tell you to take it. So, you can ask the restaurant to give you the oil after they empty it from their fryer, instead of putting it in the dumpster. You taking their oil saves them money. (Removal usually costs them money.)

Or, perhaps the restaurant owns the dumpster, and can legally give you permission.

Or, perhaps the restaurant actually sells their oil, for cheap, to, say, a biodiesel manufacturer. (Because this oil can be processed into biodiesel). In which case, they might not want to give me their oil. But, maybe they will, just this once, if I am nice. ;)

So, it takes some talking & visiting many restaurants to fill up. I can get free fuel, but the cost is time & inconvenience. It will be a challenge. Benefits: recycling, not supporting douchebag oil companies, foreign oil independence, decreased exhaust emissions: no sulfur dioxide or sulfate emissions (those are the major contributors to acid rain), carbon monoxide emissions decreased by 40-60%, carcinogens decreased by 90%, hydrocarbons decreased by 50%, soot decreased by 50%. (Citation Reference)

I could go into the supermarket & get any kind of veggie oil & put it in the van, but this is expensive & not a recycled product.

Pumping & Filtering

My conversion comes with a super-awesome filtration pump system (the RoadTote) that allows me to pump (6gal per minute, powered by the car battery) straight from dumpsters, with the peace of mind that the quality of the oil isn't going to screw up the van. Any oil coming out of the dispensing handle will be properly suited for fuel. (Filtered to 3 microns.) The initial filter in the pump/RoadTote is a wand that is washable/cleanable, then the other filter needs to be changed every 100-300gal, and they are $17. I can also pump into spare containers.

Many people filter the oil themself: they test the oil's quality before deciding they want to pump it (you want it to be nonhydrogenated, no/low animal fat content, no/barely any water, not overused), then they pump it & & perhaps first let it sit in a drum to allow for a simple gravity settle (over 2days minimally to 2wks ideally), then ciphoning from the top of THAT drum into a neighboring drum, passing the oil through a "sock" filter (often a 5 micron filter) before it enters the next drum. Then, perhaps "sock-filtering" it again through another 5-micrn filter. After that, it still may be crappy & screw your car up. 

Dashboard:

The dashboard will get:

-fuel gauge for the veggie tank, to know when its time to fill 'er up.

-filter gauge for the veggie tank, know when its time to change the fuel filter (different from the pump filters.)
-temp gauge for the veggie oil tank, so I know when the veggie oil is heated enough to start using as fuel.
-a button to switch between diesel/biodiesel & veggie oil

These are some basics.

I am dropping the van off & discussing the conversion on the morning of Sunday, May 23rd.