Grease Lightening
- Posted by: GOOD , DuncanStewart
- on November 22, 2006 at 12:15 pm
While pundits and politicians debate the feasibility of ethanol, switchgrass, and other alt-energy sources, Los Angeles-based Lovecraft Biofuels is busy making cars run on vegetable oil. The autohouse will convert any diesel engine in an afternoon, for about $700. They also have a handsome fleet of converted Reagan-era Mercedes Benzes for sale, going for about $6,000 each. Forget any preconceptions of flubber-like complexity: Lovecraft’s engine conversions are driven by founder Brian Friedman’s imperative to “simplify, simplify, simplify.” And business is brisk: the company performs about four conversions a day.
As for fuel, a nationwide network of biofuel stations already exists: grocery stores. New vegetable oil is available in bulk (around $2.60 a gallon at Costco; cheaper if you buy expired stuff). Those willing to forge friendships with deep-frying restaurateurs can fuel up for free, collecting used cooking oil and filtering it at home.
Friedman’s ambitions include developing a conversion kit for every kind of diesel engine, and he talks about a future fueled by vegetables—with vegetable-powered farm equipment harvesting crops, vegetable-powered machines turning those crops into oil, and vegetable-powered big rigs taking that oil to consumers. An utopian vision, yes, but with gas prices creeping ever skyward, it is also beginning to seem elegantly sensible
LEARN MORE lovecraftbiofuels.com
DISCUSSION: 3 Comments
I’ve got a couple of friends who’ve made the switch to vegetable oil for their cars and they love it. But really, I think the best part of these biofuels is the smell of the exhaust. I love driving behind them because it smells like french fries! I really think some clever fast food joint ought to capitalize on that and start paying folks to drive around the city in cars emblazoned with their company logo and dispensing that wonderful smell out their exhaust pipe. Seriously. I’m getting hungry right now just thinking about it.
….not just any fries. But the BEST fries. The crunchy kind that you just KNOW are going to kill you one day. Couldn’t agree more. Yum.
I love the idea, but I recall reading an article about a man who was caught running his car on vegetable and hit with some significant fines and made to pay back fuel taxes on the fuel that he had used. There is probably a way to do this legitimately, but I wonder how cost effective it would be if not using waste veggie oil. Running on waste oil seems like a perfect situation, at least until demand outstrips production (restaurant use).