Vegetable Oil Road Trip

We grow weary of having a car with no name. Therefore, we are holding a contest to name the car. If you name the car, these fabulous prizes will be yours:

• An insulated mug suitable for use in a car – be it a 6200-mile road trip or your daily commute – this thing will keep your beverage hot, cold, or lukewarm. Hapilly bedecked with our logo, assembled by our crack team of mug assemblers.
• A packet of Twining’s Earl Grey Tea and a packet of coffee – to go with the mug. We don’t know if you prefer coffee or tea – this way you will be caffinated no matter what your beverage choice is.
• Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. Because who doesn’t like Jelly Beans?
• Godiva Dark Chocolates. These need no explanation.
• Wisconsin Classic Cheddar and Smoky Cheeses – because we’re in Wisconsin.
• Toasted Sesame crackers – to go with the cheese.
• Garlic infused olive oil - because we had to include vegetable oil in here somewhere.
• Possibly something else may drop in this cornucopia, who knows?

And now, the rules of this contest…

All entries must:

• Be agreed upon by both Sacha and Mary as a good name for the car
• Have some interesting feature – additional meaning, history, etc.
• Be submitted through our contact form, with the subject of “Idea 4 Car Name”
• Include your email address (or some other way of notifying you)
• Be submitted by March 23, 2007, midnight Central time.
• Not be submitted by anyone related to either Sacha or Mary.
• The winner relinquishes their ownership of the name they came up with

Keep in mind: no whining – we have to live with the car name for the life of this car, so if yours doesn’t get chosen, it’s not personal.

We will choose the winner before departing Madison on March 26, 2007.

Update: a hint to help you out: we’re pretty sure the car is a she, not a he.

We recently met Jill and Brian who lived in Boston for several years and had many suggestions for our visit. They suggested we take the duck tour of the city. The (admittedly very touristy) tour is a fun-filled 80 minutes of history and quacking. The Freedom Trail is another good way to explore Boston: we just have to follow the red arrows over 2.5 mile trail that will lead us to 16 historic Revolutionary sites. Another suggestion was to take a trip through the underground tunnels of MIT after dark to experience the unique night life of the students.

For the flower and art lovers, the Glass Flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History exhibits 847 plant species in different stages of development, marrying art and engineering. This collection was originally commissioned for teaching botany and now an art attraction.

Since we are complete dorks, we are most excited about visiting the Boston Public Library. When it opened its doors, the BPL was the first public lending library.

Rebeccalin writes:

Hi, I was wondering why viscosity is a concern when using biodiesel. Is it because it will freeze in lower temperatures and the car would not run?
Also, what can be added to biodiesel to reduce the problem of viscosity?

Thanks!

Hi Rebeccalin,

That’s a great question!

Before we begin: viscosity is a measure of how fast a liquid flows. Something with a low viscosity (like water) flows very quickly. Something with a high viscosity (like honey or pancake syrup) flows very slowly. Also keep in mind: viscosity can change a lot with temperature. for example: cold honey barely moves at all, but if you warm it up, it flows very easily.

Viscosity of biodiesel fuel is actually pretty similar to petrodiesel fuel.

Here’s how they compare at 40C (I know, it rarely reaches 40C during the winter, but bear with me, that was the only data I could find) – I threw in the values for canola oil and water for comparison, so you can see how close biodiesel really is to petrodiesel.

The reasons the petrodiesels have a range of values here because the viscosity varies depending on the different blend of petrodiesel used – (I’ll discuss that in a second). Biodiesel also has varying viscosities, depending on the source of the grease used to make biodiesel. Pretty much, if you use very viscous grease, you get very viscous biodiesel.

Really, as long as biodiesel stays liquid, it should have no problem going through your diesel engine. Viscosity isn’t the problem.

The real problem with using any diesel engine fuel at low temperatures isn’t the viscosity – it’s what is called the cloud point. The cloud point is the temperature below which little crystals form in the fuel.

If the temperature drops below the cloud point, those little crystals grow into bigger crystals and your tank and fuel lines are filled with a solid “gel” of fuel. That sounds bad, and it is bad. Gelled fuel will prevent your car from starting, and will probably damage your fuel filters. Incidentally, the viscosity of gelled (or even clouded) fuel is way off the top of the viscosity chart above.

The cloudpoint of commercially available petrodiesel is controlled by blending – it can range from -34F to +41F.

Depending on where you are and what time of year it is, the petrodiesel available commerically will be blended differently to have a cloudpoint appropriate for the weather. This is done to save money for the oil companies. The higher (or warmer) the cloudpoint is, the less expensive the fuel is.

For example, in Minnesota in January, the cloudpoint of diesel at the pump is -34F. In Louisiana during the same month, the cloudpoint will be +25F. In June, it may be as high as +41F.

100% biodiesel has a cloudpoint of +31F to +51F, depending on what kind of grease the biodiesel was made from.

Now we’re beginning to see the problem with biodiesel in the winter. Unless you live in Louisiana, you might have problems using 100% biodiesel in the winter.

So, it’s very cold outside, but you want to drive greeen – what can you do?
The easiest solution is to blend your biodiesel with petrodiesel. I’d suggest a B20 blend (20% biodiesel/80% petrodiesel).

With regard to winter use, the National Biodiesel board says that over seven years of testing:

“The cold flow properties of biodiesel and biodiesel blends have been thoroughly tested with a variety of diesel fuels, both with and without cold flow enhancing additives. Biodiesel blends (primarily B20) have also been used in a variety of climates—including some of the coldest weather on record—without cold flow problems.”

“High concentrations of biodiesel (i.e. blends over 20%) may not be appropriate for use in cold climates without blending…with proven cold flow improvers specific to conventional diesel fuels.”

There are some people who have had success using antigel additives with higher blends of biodiesel (and even 100% biodiesel). The best source of info would be your biodiesel supplier or people with lots of experience using biodiesel in cold weather.

I hope this helps!

Sources: ASTM, National Biodiesel board, Wikipedia

Along our road trip we may encounter some of these environmental disasters caused by humans:
1. In Georgia, Providence Canyon State Park’s 16 canyons came into existence due to poor farming practices. Gradually as rows were plowed into the hillsides, they became ditches and then gullies as the land eroded. Today this area is home to sixteen impressive canyons, each as deep as 150 feet, ironically named one of Georgia’s “Seven Natural Wonders.”

2. The Desert of Maine is another impressive environmental disaster. You would never think to find a desert in Maine, but the Desert was born in the 1800s when the Tuttles, a farming family, exposed a patch of sand. The patch began as the size of a plate and has now expanded to into a little desert, complete with dunes and its own hot, arid microclimate.

Under the layer of rich topsoil where the Maine forests grow is a sandy layer of glacial silt (formed when the Ice Age glaciers ground rocks into sand as they slowly moved across Maine). The land was purchased by Willian Tuttle in 1797. Over a number of years the land was overgrazed by sheep and damaged by poor crop rotation, leading to the soil erosion. As the soil eroded, a small patch of the sandy silt layer was exposed. Once exposed, the sandy patch grew and began taking over the farmland. Eventually, the Tuttles abandoned their land because the sand had begun swallowing buildings and trees. In 1919, Henry Goldru purchased the land and transformed it into a tourist attraction. Now it’s an oddity visited by 30,000 visitors each year who come to witness the Desert of Maine.

3. California is home to our third environmental disaster: Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. The Fort Bragg beach was used as a public dumping ground starting in 1949. Everything from cars to household waste was dumped over the cliff directly into the ocean. In 1967 the North Coast Water Quality Board closed the dump and now the ocean waves have broken down the waste, leaving behind a beach filled with polished, glittering glass stones. Sacha has been there – he says it’s quite lovely, for an environmental disaster. He even has some glass pebbles from the beach down in the basement, somewhere.

All is well:
The mechanics from Prairie Fire BioFuels (Luke and Jeff) called up to say that I was right, the glow plugs were to blame – 4 out of 5 plugs had gone totally bad. No wonder the car didn’t start…

The car will stay there for a few more days as Luke and Jeff do some (much needed) maintenance and general repairs to the car. By the time I get it back, all starting problems should be solved, and all fluids will have been flushed and changed, amongst other random tests and lubrication.

Our very sad car next to a biodiesel pump last night:

Earlier:
Vehicular Drama 1
Vehicular Drama 2

Just noticed today that we broke a bunch of links when we switched to the new template. Everyone who tried the “contact us” link but found a page missing error – sorry about that. Everything should be working better now, thanks for the patience everyone…

The weekend is over, and as promised, I have a car update for you all:

1. It’s definitely the glow plugs. That’s why the car isn’t starting.
2. I can’t change them in my employer’s garage – it’s too cold, too dark, my tool chest is more than 15 minutes away, and this afternoon I would have given my right leg for a 12mm deep socket wrench. With my cruddy tools (and cruddy technique) in the dark, it took me over an hour to remove one measly glow plug.
3. My insurance covers towing!

So, we’re getting the car towed over to Prairie Fire BioFuels Coop. The fine, fine mechanics there will get the old girl up and running again and get everything right as rain. As long as she’s in there, we’ll her fully serviced – and get everything completely fixed before our departure. Peace of mind (and the skin on my knuckles) will be worth it.

Side note: we’re probably going to become coop members – it turns out that members get a $20 per hour of mechanic time discount (!) for any work on cars. If you use more than 3.75 hours of mechanic time, the membership pays for itself.

(Thanks, Dad)

Since I don’t like the idea of writing what is essentially a me too post copying news I’ve read that I think you might find interesting, we’ve added the “Stuff we’ve read” section on the right. It has headlines for articles dealing with VegOil and biofuel I find interesting. If you click the “Read more” link, you’ll find a page with more detail, more articles, and an RSS feed.

I generate the list of articles as I read the news, so it stays up to date pretty regularly. I hope that the end result is a less cluttered blog, with more news. Tell us how you like it…

The biggest risk in this trip isn’t the fuel I’m using, it’s the 24-year old car I’m driving. That fact has been made clear to me this week. The car isn’t starting.

I drove it to work on Wednesday. When I hopped in to go home, it would not start, and I killed the battery trying. So, I took the battery out and hitched a ride home with a coworker. Thursday morning, with a fresh charge on the battery, I try again, and again kill the battery trying to start the car. With a little help from my friends, I wheeled the car over to a power outlet and plugged the block heater in.

Current situation:
The car is in a parking lot, with the block heater and battery charger plugged in. It hasn’t moved for almost 4 days now.

Possible problems:
Dead battery: I took the battery to the auto parts store to check it’s health – the guy charged the battery and says the battery is in great shape. Car still won’t start.

Gelled fuel: (diesel fuel solidifies at low temperatures: it’s been as low as -6F at night) I added some anti-gel to the tank. Car still won’t start. If this is the real problem, I probably will just have to wait until it reaches a balmy 40F on Tuesday.

Bad glow plugs: I noticed this: when I try to start the car, on the first attempt, the glow plug indicator light does not light up, but if I immediately try again, it does light up – does this indicate a problem with the plugs? I hope so – that would be an easy fix. I purchased 5 new glow plugs (~$50), and will investigate this weekend.

Bad glow plug relay: I really hope it’s not this. New relays cost ~$150 and have to be special ordered. When I investigate the plugs, I’ll also be able to see if the problem is the relay.

Could there be something else I haven’t considered? The starter seems to be working fine – the engine is turning over smoothly. When I turn the key, I hear a nice solid thunk of relays operating. Any ideas out there?

I will have more info after I’ve had a chance to look at the glow plugs.

OK, we’re all done switching to the new template – Firefox users should notice nothing new, but Internet Explorer users should now see a prettier view of the website (not perfect, just better). Sorry bout that.

If you want to see the entire internet as intended, just click on the “get firefox” buttons at the bottom of every page of the main site.

If there are any remaining bugs, please drop a line or comment…