Biodiesel

Some people are buying used Volkswagen diesel cars, and fitting them to run on used vegetable oil gotten free from “greasy spoon” restaurants. Others have converted old Mercedes cars (http://www.green-benz.com). The restaurants are happy to get rid of the used “grease” (which they normally have to pay to have hauled away), and the car owner is happy to have free fuel. Economically, it’s a win-win deal, with the only downside to the whole thing being the air pollution and global warming effects of burning the fuel in the car. But at least it’s using a renewable resource.

Commercially available biodiesel fuel is still hard to find, and can actually be more expensive than conventional, petroleum diesel. However, the “bio” component of it is derived from renewable sources, like soybeans, or in fact various vegetable or animal fats. And singer/actor Willie Nelson is a great advocate of biodiesel, burning it in his motorhome, and even lending his name to “BioWillie” fuel, now sold in several states of the U.S.

According to Nelson’s biodiesel website, there are many advantages to using biodiesel, and it can be burned in modern diesel engines without modification.


Castor oil (derived from easy-to-grow Castor beans, unfortunately also used by terrorists to produce the deadly toxin known as ricin) has been used medicinally, and as a lubricant and lamp fuel, so it should be possible to refine it into biodiesel fuel. Castor bean plants (Ricinus communis), which originated in Africa and the Middle East, have become naturalized in most tropical and subtropical parts of the world, and the beans are said to produce over 40% oil.

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