Changing the Filter and Dinner

It's time to change the fuel filter again - we have traveled over 2500 miles on the current filter and I'm starting to notice some sluggishness from the engine. I'm thinking this time it would be wise to take proactive measures instead of waiting for it to clog as we drive to our camp out this weekend.


Tonight we attended the ACLU's Bill of Rights Dinner featuring Ohio University alumni Clarence Page. At our table in addition to discussions of habeas corpus, wiretapping, equality, and Senator Larry Craig there was talk of our grease mobile and ways to lessen our impact on the environment while weaning ourselves from foreign oil.

A Doorbell Rings

Earlier today the guy who mows our neighbor's lawn came over to the house to speak with Craig. Now if you saw our yard you would understand why Craig assumed that he was crossing the street in an effort to gain more business. But instead of talking about lawn care he wanted to discuss our grease car. Seems the gentleman is interested in converting his diesel truck but has experienced some difficulties as well as substantial expense attempting to produce homemade biodiesel. Craig detailed our experience with WVO, showed him around our simple fuel station and gave him the websites for Greasecar and GoodOil. I think one of the advantages of our system, over other options, is that it truly seems like the easier softer way. To steal Geico's marketing slogan it really is so easy a caveman could do it!

How Kind!

It's Tuesday which is our pickup day for the Mexican restaurant but Craig had to work late which meant it's my turn to flex my muscles. After work I drive over to the restaurant where fortuitously a kind gentleman just happens to walk out of the building carrying the used oil. He of course recognized the car and generously loaded the free fuel into the back so I didn't have to burn one calorie (guess this means I should hit the gym later).

Newspaper Inteview

Our newspaper interview was tonight so I raced home from work to clean the house while simultaneously attempting to wolf down a piece of pizza for dinner. As I'm hiding various odds and ends behind closet doors I imagine the reporter titling her article "Greasecar Leads to Filthy Home" or "Couple Focuses on Car while Mold Grows". By the time Debe arrived around 7:00 the living room and kitchen were presentable, as long as no doors were opened, and we sat down to a nice conversation. Being minor zealots Craig and I had no problems detailing the reasons for our decision or the resulting benefits. Debe taped the interview while taking notes and asking all the pertinent questions. After an hour or so we took her to the garage so she could view the fuel station Craig created and smell our rather odorless exhaust. Shortly after she left Craig informed me that there was something BLACK on my tooth. Turns out a piece of mushroom from the pizza I inhaled landed on my front tooth where it was plainly visible for all to see, although my adorable spouse didn't notice it until after the reporter left our house. So now I'm envisioning a headline reading "Burning Grease Leads to Rotten Teeth".

It turns out that our story is being published in the Indiana Weekly which is a supplement to the Louisville Courier Journal, with a circulation somewhat larger than I anticipated. Our article is scheduled for the September 12th edition so mark the date on your calendars!

A Good Question

Last week one of our passengers - a very bright tween - asked about emissions from the greasecar. I know that WVO is a carbon neutral fuel (it's created from plants that absorb more CO2 from the air than is released when the oil is burned, and therefore doesn't contribute additional CO2 in the atmosphere) and that it doesn't contain any sulfur which is a carcinogen. Additionally, by collecting oil from restaurants we are basically driving on a renewable, recycled waste product. But I wanted to know more so I spent some time this evening Googling greasecar emmisions and discovered that there actually is some research documenting the advantages of burning vegetable oil over diesel. In the interest of full disclosure most studies utilized straight vegetable oil (SVO), like canola from a bottle, instead of WVO which is highly variable depending on the source or manner of use.

Greasecar compared emissions from diesel, SVO, homemade biodiesel and professional biodiese, burned in a 1981 VW Vanogon. Although nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions remained stable the use of SVO reduced carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM). Similar tests by the National VegOil Board examined the difference between ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) and SVO as burned by a 2002 VW Golf, and documented reductions in total hydrocarbons (THC), carbon dioxide (CO2), CO, and NOx, leading them to assert that "vegetable oil represents one of the best "green" fuels available at this time".



So now the next time I'm driving through the city and there's an Air Quality Alert being broadcast from all the electronic highway signs, cautioning the elderly and children to remain indoors, I'll know that I've made an effort to reduce the negative impact my transportation has on the quality of air we all breathe.

Lifting Oil

Although Tuesday is our scheduled pick-up day from the Mexican restaurant, we agreed to help a friend with her booth at the Kentucky State Fair this evening. Since I needed to carry a bunch of stuff to work I drove the grease mobile today but planned to switch off with Craig and take the scooter after we left the fair. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my helmet and I married a guy with a big head. Since it was already 10:00 when I escaped the fairground traffic I just decided to pick up the grease myself and save the big headed guy an extra trip. Sure enough when I arrived at the restaurant there were two 5-gallon jugs of WVO sitting outside the back entrance waiting for my arrival. Although we've never actually weighed our WVO, a gallon of water weighs 8.33 lbs so even with water being heavier than oil, when you factor in the canisters themselves, I think it's safe to assume that each container weighed around 40 lbs. One at a time I lifted both jugs into the back of the car, mentally chalking this up as my weight-training session for the week. As my luck would have it just as soon as I finished the task a restaurant employee exited the building. Despite the language barriers I understood him to comment on my late arrival and the fact that they've come to depend on our weekly visits. I tried to assure him that I just had another commitment earlier in the evening and reiterated our gratitude for their supply of oil. Perhaps in addition to increasing my workouts at the gym I should look into a Spanish language course.

Buying Diesel

Our grease mobile still has the original diesel tank and runs on "normal" fuel for the first 5-10 minutes after ignition. The last time we purchased diesel fuel was on July 21, more than 2,000 miles ago. Today while he was out buying new tires, Craig did me a favor and filled up the diesel tank. In very short time, I've become unaccustomed to paying for fuel, avoiding the task as much as possible. Before the grease mobile, I filled up my car at least once a week but now that the custom has been interrupted I enjoy driving by gas stations and their absence from my routine. I'm surprised at how quickly my mind set has been altered, how I no longer perceive gasoline as a necessary expenditure but instead view it as a cumbersome, irritant in our grease burning adventure. Quitting gasoline has undoubtedly been the easiest habit I've ever kicked.

The reporter from a local paper was supposed to come by our house Monday for an interview but Craig's work schedule changed and we have to postpone our extremely brief flirtation with fame.

Tires Again

So I drive back to the garage with my trusty tire key and ask them to rotate the tires. After 15-20 minutes the mechanic (a different guy than the one that was working earlier this week) comes over and states that my tires are so worn they must be replaced immediately and rotating them is pointless. Now I'm not happy because this is the second afternoon I've spent in a stinky garage, looking at stupid magazines, while Jerry Springer plays on the TV, and the gentleman on Wednesday failed to mention that my tires were beyond rotation before encouraging me to return with the all important, essential key. Today's mechanic is apologetic and sorry for my wait but that doesn't really improve the situation and I decide that it's time to locate another garage that 1) smells better and 2) either has greater diversity in their reading selection or better TV shows.

A Tire Key?!?

Being the responsible car owner I took my car to a local garage to have the oil changed and tires rotated. As I'm sitting in the waiting area, flipping through pages of Sports Illustrated, a mechanic comes over and asks me for the tire key. Since my car was already on the rack it was obvious that he hadn't mispoke in an effort to obtain the ignition key so I politely asked him to repeat the question. A tire key? In front of all the other - I'm sure much more knowledgeable - car owners I confessed that I'd never heard of such an item, nor did I have the slightest idea where one would be in relation to my car. At this point, fortunately for me, the mechanic started talking slowly using short words. He explained that the tires on Volkswagen vehicles are protected from theft by a lock on the tires lug nuts and each car comes equipped with a unique key that will allow the tires to be removed and in my case rotated as requested. Seizing the learning opportunity, he showed me a similar tire key for another automobile and even took me into the bay where he demonstrated how such a key is used to unlock the lug nuts. Since the grease tank for our car is situated where a spare tire would normally be I assume that the tire key along with all the other extra fixings were removed during the conversion and are probably covered with spider webs taking up space in our basement. The mechanic kindly explains to me why this is a bad idea (he would obviously never allow his tire key to be subjected to hairy spiders) and encourages me to locate the vital key, come back to the garage, and have my tires rotated. As you might guess, as soon as I leave the facility I call Craig to see if he knows about our special super locked tires and am comforted by his similar confusion (a what?!?). Once he arrives home the tire key (and jack and other assorted tools) is quickly retrieved from our basement.

35 Gallons of Oil

We have OIL!!! The restaurant that decided to change to non-hydrogenated oil so we could recycle their waste generously provided us with 20 gallons of free fuel. It just so happens that today being Tuesday we also received 15 gallons of WVO from our Mexican restaurant so Craig is in the process of filtering 35 gallons of oil in the garage while I take photos.

Fuel Efficient Cars

I was reading my favorite blog earlier and came across a diary about current CAFE standards in the United States. Since DailyKos' membership is international, there were several comments from individuals living in other countries with access to vehicles with greater fuel efficiency. Vehicles I have never heard of. Vehicles that are not advertised on my cable stations. Vehicles that I can't purchase unless I leave the USA. Why doesn't my local VW dealership sell the Polo? What's preventing the Nissan showroom from featuring a Micra? And why can I buy a Smart car in Canada but not in America? Earlier this spring while searching for a new car one of my requirements was a vehicle obtaining 40mpg or better which severely limited our options - of course the silver lining in all of this is that the dearth of fuel efficient vehicles led to our grease mobile.

Buisness Cards

Now that I've started back to work and am driving all over the city we need to establish some additional contacts for fuel. Our Mexican connection consistently provides us with 10 gallons of oil each week but we need about 20 gallons so we've been eating out at various restaurants and requesting WVO along with our check. Craig created business cards for us to hand out to interested individuals with our contact information (which I intentionally smudged for the blog).

In other news, we've been contacted by a reporter for a local paper who wants to write an article about our experience. I suspect the paper's subscription base is rather small but in my fantasy world I dream that the report is picked up by more prominent media sources - in particular Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

McDonald's

So McDonald's - in the UK - is going to convert the WVO produced by Happy Meals into fuel for their fleet of 155 trucks.

Columbus

I drove to Columbus (458 miles round trip) today for my follow up exam with the ophthalmologist at Bloomberg Eye Center. Before I left, Craig kindly filled the grease mobile with oil and loaded an extra 5 gallons plus the funnel into the back of the wagon. Although I stopped several times for food and drinks, the Jetta made the entire trip on free WVO. After my doctor's appointment, it was necessary for me to refill the tank with extra oil and the whole process from opening the trunk to washing my hands in the restroom (note to self: purchase baby wipes for car) took approximately 10 minutes. It's the first time I've filled the car on my own and although the container was rather heavy and I spilled a bit of oil, there was a sense of accomplishment when I finished and it was definitely worth the $15 I saved by not purchasing fuel from a gas station.

Green Cities

My brother-in-law sent me the following link which explains how the city of Rialto, CA - a suburb of Los Angeles - in partnership with Chevron built a wastewater treatment system which converts WVO into electricity. In addition to significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and curtailing landfill waste, the city (population 100,000) is projecting an annual savings of $800,000. Millbrae, located about 15 miles outside of San Francisco, has a similar system operating at their wastewater treatment facility which converts 3,000 gallons of WVO into renewable, clean power each day.

Obviously, if municipalities start collecting and converting WVO there will be little if any fuel available for our personal grease mobile but I'm not too concerned. As a resident of the midwest I know from experience that it takes many years - and sometimes decades - for California trends to reach us out here in the heartland. I don't expect the Jetta to last indefinitely, and my desire is for new technologies and options to be available when the grease mobile expires and we purchase another vehicle. Maybe in another 5-10 years the price of a Tesla will decrease enough to make it financially viable for our household.

The other perspective is that I look forward to the possibility of living in a community that is more environmentally responsible. Imagine the impact to the city's air quality if 11 million pounds of carbon dioxide were removed from the atmosphere annually - that's equivalent to eliminating 1080 vehicles and their emissions from our roads. Although each of us can and should do our part, the potential for great change rests with the larger systems in our communities.