Road trips begin with a deep fryer ...50 mpg on used cooking oil

[ElsewheresDaughter]

Local drivers get up to 50 miles per gallon using cooking oil to power their diesel engines



By PATRICK CAIN, Special to the Times Union
First published: Sunday, July 17, 2005

Mark Merrett's 1997 Volkswagen Passat is on a high-fat, high-mileage diet.
His car runs on used vegetable oil, and he gets up to 50 miles per gallon of the stuff. Merrett fuels up for free about twice a week at Manory's, the oldest restaurant in Troy, reducing the number of times he needs to pay the $2.60-per-gallon cost of diesel.

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As crude oil prices hover around the $60-a-barrel mark, an increasing number of like-minded drivers are looking for alternative fuels sources that are cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

"We were familiar with veggie cars. I was excited when he came to me. I thought it'd be fun," said Louis Marchese Jr., owner of Manory's. "Every aspect of it seems positive to me, especially the environmental part."

Merrett uses only a small portion of the oil from Manory's Fish Fry Fridays. The rest is stored and Marchese said he'd be happy to help others run their cars on used vegetable oil.

This new use for an old cooking product is attracting attention from municipal transportation departments, the fuel industry and individual drivers -- including some in New York state. Private and public interests are investing in the concept.

All a car needs to get started on grease is a diesel engine.

Merrett, who works for Cogent Technologies and lives in the Rensselaer County village of East Nassau, says he gets 40 to 50 miles from a gallon of filtered vegetable oil. His son, Sam, has made 500-mile trips that, except for a little diesel needed to start and shut down his 1998 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, were fueled by vegetable oil.

The car has made trips of 1,500 miles on one tank of diesel fuel and multiple refillings of vegetable oil, said Sam Merrett, who installed both his and his father's own vegetable oil modifications.

Merrett said his Passat's vegetable-oil-powered diesel engine releases fewer toxins into the environment, and conversions are not complicated. After all, when Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the first working diesel engine in 1893, it ran on peanut oil.


http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=379955&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=7/17/2005

[glitch]

1. And on top of all that - it smells good.

I must say I love my bio-d. I've never loved a fuel before...