Vegetable Oil Road Trip

A while back, I received the following question:

Hey, I just wanted to say hello and ask you if you have any suggestions about procuring the vegetable oil. My bus is about ready and I heard there are good establishments to get oil from relatively painlessly. Any advice is appreciated.

Supposedly there are organizations who will sell the oil- already filtered for cost but this is anecdotal. I am perfectly happy climbing in the grease traps and sucking it out and filtering it myself, but I need to know where to actually get it.

Cheers,
adam

Sadly, when I replied to the email address Adam gave, my reply bounced. Here is my answer:

Hi Adam,

Gosh, that’s the million-dollar question: where do you get vegetable oil?

First, a few warnings about dumpsters:

1. Once oil is placed into a dumpster, it legally belongs to the company that owns the dumpster. If you pump oil from the dumpster (even with the restaurant’s permission), you are stealing. There have been prosecutions of people running their cars on veg oil who pumped oil from dumpsters in Texas and other states.
2. Can you really, guarantee that some brainiac hasn’t decided to dump their old engine oil into that “oil only” dumpster? You can’t filter engine oil out of veggie oil, and I guarantee that engine oil will cause damage to your engine.

Now, on to your question: where do you get used oil?
Most restaurants pay a waste removal service to dispose of their used fryer oil. If you offer to pick up their oil for free, most restaurants will be happy to help you out.

What you want:

• Vegetable oil without animal fats that has been used at relatively low temperatures (~300-350F). Preferably canola or soy oil.
• Absolutely no hydrogenated oils – the words “creamy fryer shortening” on oil containers are a tip-off that their oil is hydrogenated.

Best places to try:

• Mexican restaurants that only use fryers for making tortilla chips
• sushi restaurants that use fryers for making tempura with vegetables and fish
• vegetarian or middle eastern restaurants that use fryers for making falafel and french fries
• chip factories (only approach them if you can handle the volume – otherwise, they will drown you in oil)

Tips to prevent you from ruining it for the rest of us:

• Be professional, polite, and dependable – the restaurant is depending on you to remove their oil. If you can’t do it reliably, they’ll wish they had could just pay Waste Management to do it. Establish a day/time to get the oil, and stick to it. Even during the winter.
• Get the manager’s name and contact info; give them yours.
• Be clean: bring a tarp, lots of rags, rubber gloves, funnels, and lots of absorbent material in case of spills. Leave your workspace (their kitchen or alleyway) as clean as you found it.

If all of this sounds like too much work (and it is a lot of work), try fillup4free.com, or look for a biofuels co-op, conversion shop, or other vegetable fuel organization near you.

I hope this helps.

I just got an email from a band asking for a good place to get biofuels in the southwest US (I pointed them towards our friends at the Denver Biodiesel and Boulder Biodiesel CoOps, natch).

The band is Them Damned Young Livers, and they’re on tour right now in a vegetable oil powered bus. I took a listen to their MySpace page – and they put out some pretty decent driving tunes (nearly makes me wish I had a car again) about hard drinking.

Good luck, out there guys.

On Sunday, July 15, I was invited to an event at Denver Biodiesel Co-Op. When I arrived, I realized that the evens was the triumphant grand re-opening of Denver Biodiesel!

They sell B99.9 (99.9% biodiesel, 0.1% petroleum diesel) and vegetable oil for making into biodiesel (apparently there is no recognition of vegoil as a fuel in Colorado). Their myspace page is here.

Unfortunately, I only took video, so I don’t have stills to share, but it was load of fun – live graffiti mural making, music, food, loads of diesel vehicles to look at, and loads of biodiesel and vegetable oil sales.

Thanks Matt, for helping me to fill up!

A big part of driving this far on vegetable oil is finding good sources of fuel. My emergency filtration kit is okay in a pinch, but there’s no way I can filter 40 gallons through it without going nuts. This led me to visit the Grease Kings.

Searching the SF bay area for a source of Veg Oil on fillup4free.com, I found GreaseKings – a company that makes and installs Vegetable Oil kits, and handles all things vegetable oil in Sacramento, CA.

I called Rich (Grease Kings’ owner) and asked if I could get about 35 gallons of oil, and headed up to Sacramento to fill up Minnie. On my way out the door, my phone rings again “hey, are you that guy driving around the country – on the National VegOil Board website?” That’s right I experienced my first (and only) moment of web-celebrity!

When I arrived, we chatted briefly about his work with Grease Kings before he dashed off to a meeting.

It looks like the Grease Kings shop manufacturers all their conversion kit equipment in-house (their heated filter housings look very cool), which allows them to maintain high quality control. Their kit is a single-tank system with coolant heating.

As I’ve mentioned before, I really like single tank systems for their simplicity, and I wish Minnie had one, but (having driven Minnie through a Wisconsin winter) I’m worried about extreme cold weather (below zero F) performance. But for West Coast (and even 10 months of Wisconsin), driving, a single tank system is so much better than the headaches of a dual tank kit!

So, if you happen to be in the Sacramento area, go check out GreaseKings and say hello to Rich for me!

Rich, Minnie, and me.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, on Wednesday morning I visited Sequential Biofuels‘ gorgeous flagship fueling station located at 86714 McVay Hwy in Eugene, OR. I realize I just called a gas station gorgeous, but if you go there, I think you’ll agree – compared to the traditional fueling station next door, this one looks awesome!

The station is unique for several reasons:
1. Only biofuel and biofuel blends are sold:

• 10% ethanol (90% gasoline)
• 85% ethanol (15% gasoline)
• 5% biodiesel (95% diesel)
• 20% biodiesel (80% diesel)
• 99.9% biodiesel (0.1% diesel)

2. 30-50% of all electricity consumed by the station comes from the solar panels installed as sun shades above the fuel pumps.
3. 4800 plants make up the “living roof” over the convenience store to control rainwater runoff and keep the building cool in the summer.
4. The snacks in the convenience store attempt to be as local and organic as possible.
5. Sequential also operates a 1 Million Gallon/year biodiesel plant in Salem.

When I arrived, I was greeted warmly by Helen and Allen (who filled Minnie up with B99.9 manufactured in Salem, OR). We chatted about the company, the fueling station, and the Governor’s visit before I headed down the road to the SF bay.

Photo courtesy sqbiofuels.com.

We just filled up at the BioFuel Oasis in Berkeley, CA – a startup business of five women selling 100% biodiesel out of a workspace on the west side of Berkeley.

While waiting for our turn at the pump, we met Alania (I really hope I spelled that right) a traveling saleswoman for Livity Outernational – an organic clothing company. She was refueling her Bio-Beetle Rental Car with biodiesel. Apparently, she really enjoys renting from them: “The last time I rented from them, I didn’t want to give the car back!”

Full disclosure: she gave us organic cotton and hemp (for me) and soy (for Mary) tee-shirts to try out (Thanks!). We have to admit that we’re hooked – we both loved the silkscreened pattern, material colors, feel, and fit. And we also thought that it is very cool that all the materials were made from organic sources…

I believe that you can purchase their clothes online or at Whole Foods stores.

On a warm, muggy Tuesday evening, we drive to Central Storage, in a slightly run-down neighborhood in East Austin. We punch in a secret code, the chain link gate creaks open, and we slowly drive past worn storage sheds and warehouses, a Metal Band practicing for an upcoming gig and a scooter repair company, to the end of the row where we find a turbodiesel Volkswagen parked next to a huge gray tank, filling up with 99% biodiesel.

This is the world of Austin’s vegetable oil and B100 (100% biodiesel) distributor: DieselGreen Fuels. Started in July 2006 by Mike, Elizabeth, and Jason, this scrappy little company is doing a lot to help Austinites drive green, and keep their fuel money within the community (instead of going to OPEC countries):

• Direct biodiesel sales at their East Side location on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings or anytime by appointment – call (512) 24-7-FUEL
• Waste vegetable oil (WVO) collection and processing (they have a Texas State rendering license!).
• Sale of WVO to local biodiesel producer (who then provides their biodiesel).
• Sale of WVO to people with converted diesel vehicles
• WVO conversions of diesel engines
• Educational outreach to the community

On top of all this, they’re also overhauling their WVO process with a centerfuge to allow for continuous processing of their waste vegetable oil (a very ambitious move on their part).

If you’re in the Austin area and are looking for some VegOil, Biodiesel, or just want to learn more about biofuels, you can contact DieselGreen Fuels via their website (DieselGreen Fuels).

We wish DieselGreen success, and hope they are around next time we swing through looking for VegOil (thanks for the fill-up, guys!).

Oh, and P.S.: they’re on the lookout for interns. If you live in the Austin area and want a chance to play with waste VegOil, this might be your dream non-job!