Orange County Register; Date:2007 March 19; Section:Front Page; Page Number: News 3

A growing number of enthusiasts hope to dodge gasoline costs – and reduce air pollution – by converting diesel cars to run on vegetable oil.

By Pat Brennan The Orange County Register

Now your car can be a vegetarian, too.

Instead of driving autos that slurp up fossil fuels – the liquefied remains of ancient plants and animals – a small but growing cadre of enthusiasts are converting their cars and trucks to let them gulp vegetable oil. What comes out of the tailpipe smells like french fries, or maybe Chinese takeout, but produces far lower levels of some types of air pollution.

The number of such enthusiasts in Orange County and the rest of Southern California likely remains low. But diesel mechanics here, in Los Angeles County and elsewhere are busy converting cars and trucks to run on vegetable oil, which works only with diesel engines. And they say the popularity of these conversions is increasing.

   “Some people want to save the Earth,” said Mike Nott, owner of Beach Benz in Huntington Beach, who regularly installs vegetable-oil conversion kits in cars for his customers. “They don’t want to drive with fossil fuels.”

MAKING THE CHANGE: “Some people want to save the Earth,” said Mike Nott, center, owner of Beach Benz in Huntington Beach, who regularly installs vegetable-oil conversion kits.

   Fresh vegetable oil can be purchased in stores and poured into the tank. But some veggie car owners collect used cooking oil from restaurants and filter it for use as fuel – many for their own vegetableoil cars, and a few who have turned it into a small business, selling the processed oil to other enthusiasts.

   That, in essence, yields fuel that is nearly free or at least low-cost, a major incentive for those who are tired of high gas prices and willing to take the risk.

   “We’re going to the river for free this year,” said Kelly Boshman, a San Juan Capistrano chiropractor, who processes used oil for fuel, owns one 1987 Mercedes Benz that runs on vegetable oil and will soon convert his wife’s 1991 diesel Ford Excursion.

   “We’ll see how it is towing a trailer,” he said.

   While air-quality regulators say the number of converted cars is still too small to make much of a dent in the thousands of tons of automobile pollution pumped into the air over Southern California every day, they, too, are studying the growing phenomenon – and already warning of potential ill effects.

   The main one: While veggie cars do cut down on fine particle pollution and greenhouse gases, they could increase emissions of nitrogen oxides, which help form smog.

   “If folks are taking these old Mercedes, and putting in 100 percent vegetable oil, chances are they’re getting a 10 to 15 percent increase in NOX (nitrogen oxide) emissions,” said Matt Miyasato, a technology demonstrations manager at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar. “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.”

   Bob McCormick, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., said that’s true as far as it goes. But while some studies have been done of vegetable oil, fuels, engines and conversion systems are so variable that what comes out of the tailpipe can be highly variable as well. Certain blends of vegetable oil-derived fuel and diesel, for example, may show no increase in nitrogen oxides.

   And one veggie car-converter in Los Angeles said his own tests showed no increase in nitrogen oxide emissions.
“The NOX was slightly less than the average for diesel,” said Brian Friedman, system designer at Lovecraft Biofuels. Another caution: While Internal Revenue Service officials say they have no requirements for consumers who use vegetable oil for fuel, state Board of Equalization rules say they should be paying a state excise tax of 18 cents a gallon. Failing to pay it could result in an audit and even a penalty.

   Converting a car to run on vegetable oil is a surprisingly simple process, and topping the list of favorites are Mercedes-Benz cars built in the mid-1980s.
   Nott says he began doing the conversions about a year ago and has completed about 30. But word of mouth spreads so rapidly, he neither sought interested customers at the beginning nor has any need to advertise his service now.

   One of Nott’s most frequent customers is Spencer Brown, who tries to run his business, Earth Friendly Moving of Huntington Beach, without producing any pollution whatever.

   He begins by collecting waste plastic from landfills, then turning it into packing material for moving. The material is delivered to customers with his fleet of veggie-oil vehicles – several 1980s Mercedes-Benz cars and recent-model diesel trucks, which run mainly on vegetable oil.

   “This is one option, not the solution,” Brown said recently as he stopped by Nott’s business to check on a new vegetable-oil fuel tank for his truck. “It’s a starting point.”

   In Los Angeles, Lovecraft Biofuels has converted 1,000 cars in five years – 800 of those in the past year, said system designer Friedman. Beach Benz and Lovecraft install somewhat different types of systems. Nott orders conversion kits from manufacturers in other states that require a second fuel tank to be installed, allowing both vegetable oil and diesel fuel to be used. Lovecraft relies on a simpler, single tank system of its own design.

   Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are finding other lucrative business opportunities in the growing popularity of veggie cars.

   An outfit called Extreme Biodiesel in Orange sells processors that strip impurities from used vegetable oil so that it is less likely to clog fuel filters. Some users of vegetable oil fuel call it biodiesel, although McCormick, the energy laboratory scientist, reserves that term for fuel that begins as vegetable oil but undergoes a specific set of chemical reactions. He and some other experts do not place fuel that consists solely of vegetable oil in that category.

   Whatever names are used, Bob Neuberger, president of Extreme Biodiesel, says he’s done a steady business since he opened his doors about eight months ago, selling about 80 units so far. He sells the processing units mostly to enthusiasts who filter used vegetable oil at home and takes pride in helping foster the use of an alternative to gasoline.

   “Talk’s cheap,” he said. “We’ve got to start doing these things.”
   Boshman, the San Juan Capistrano chiropractor, does his own fuel processing with a system he ordered from a Missouri company, and sells some of the fuel on the side.

   He’s pleased so far with his veggie car and the tight network of believers who share his sentiments.

   “It’s sort of fun to think it’s good for the environment,” Boshman said. “If more people did it, we’d be less dependent on foreign oil sources. It’s a renewable energy source. We’re not going to run out of it.”

CONTACT THE WRITER:
environment editor Pat Brennan
at 714-796-7865 or pbrennan@ocregister.com

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