by
The Green Fiend
Annemarie Conte
Annemarie Conte scoffs at petroleum
and embraces French fry grease
I haven’t owned a car since college—and back then it was my father’s hand-me-down boat of
a Buick LeSabre. This time around, I wanted my daily drive to have less of an environmental impact.
Because there’s no viable plug-in hybrid on the market, I had to look elsewhere.
I read a few articles extolling the
virtues of converting old diesel cars
to run on used cooking oil. Unlike
biodiesel—which is processed so
it can be poured directly into the
car’s diesel tank—waste vegetable
oil (WVO) is a quick and easy system ... supposedly. But because it
requires installing a second fuel
tank, it turns out the field-of-daisies
utopia is a little harder won. And
you, get to benefit from my steep
climb up the learning curve.
Nightmare reality No. 1
You have to buy a used car. Convert ing a new car will void the
warranty, so people commonly get
an ’80s-era Mercedes or Volkswagen. I decided to go with a Mercedes 300D because they’re tanks,
they run forever, and they look
awesome. Unfortunately, they’re
also incredibly in-demand (beware
of scam artists and eBay bidders’
fervor), and they can go for thou-
sands above the Blue Book value.
Finally, after fruitlessly searching
for weeks, my ex-boyfriend mentioned his fiancée had one for sale.
The lessons here: Stay in touch
with your exes, and never underestimate the power of whining.
Nightmare reality No. 2
You have to install the tank yourself.
After buying the kit from greasecar.
com for about $1,000, you can drop
another grand on a mechanic, or
you can DIY for free. But doing the
work yourself presents a problem:
The Greasecar instructions assume a lot—for instance, that you
have intimate knowledge of the
technical workings of a Reaganera vehicle. I solved this issue by
taking a community college class
and offering up the installation as
a group project. Even with all that
combined technical skill, we still
relied on forums such as mercedesshop.com and the Greasecar site.
Nightmare reality No. 3
You have to deal with the aftermath
of the installation. These cars are
old, and stuff fails, especially when
you tax the system by adding a
second fuel tank. I spent another
grand having a mechanic replace
a burnt out fuel pump and worn
engine mounts, among other
glorious technical breakdowns.
My investment was suddenly
equivalent to a year’s worth of
diesel. Good thing I wasn’t into
WVO for the cost savings.
Nightmare reality No. 4
You might be breaking the law.
Technically, WVO isn’t an EPAapproved fuel, nor is it taxed.
And you know that the gov’ment
likes to tax anything it can. But
WVO use has become so common in California that many
people are ponying up their 25
cents per gallon in state fuel
taxes. On top of that, you have
to get the oil from restaurants,
which usually pay disposal companies to get rid of it. Make sure
you get the oil directly from the
restaurant and not out of the disposal company’s holding tank—
dip your hands in the latter’s vat
of grease and you’re stealing.
Nightmare reality No. 5
You have to filter old, gross oil. I
have a friend who stopped eating at his WVO-supplier pizza
place because their oil was so
nasty. Find an establishment
that uses high-quality oil and
changes it frequently, or you’ll
never eat out again.
So after all this, was the time, expense, and gigantic learning curve
worth it? Actually, yeah. But it’s
not for everyone, and it’s only
part of the solution to our environmental problems. As soon as
that plug-in becomes available,
my name is first on the list. ✤
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