Run your vehicle on Vegetable Oil

I didn’t know how I missed it. I was ignorant till yesterday, and all this time I believed that we cannot run our bikes and cars on vegetables. I heard of biogas that is used for cooking, and seldom heard about biodiesel, and didn’t know its use. I had a belief that when food gives our body the energy to perform, it can give energy to the vehicles also, and it proved right. A quick search on the net revealed quite an amount of information on this topic.

Is it feasible to run on vegetable oil?

Yes, it is feasible.

Rudolf Diesel invented internal combustion engine made it run on peanut oil, in the view that the farmers then could make their own fuel in their farms (Survival Blog.com).

(Conversion - a little bit of engineering ;))

In the present day scenario, we need to convert our standard diesel/petrol engines to run on vegetable oil. The reason for conversion is that of the difference between viscosity levels. Vegetable oil at normal temperature is thick and needs to be heated up to 160-170 degrees to make it as thin as diesel. Do we have it to heat it at our homes before we drive? Nope. An alternative tank is needed with a heating device for the vegetable oil. So we run our cars on diesel initially, then when the temperature reaches 170 degrees, we switch the tank. And zoom! We are running on vegetable oil.

Is it cost effective?

A liter of vegetable oil will cost you much more than a liter of diesel. Then why spend so much (1000 pounds in Britain – Guardian UK) to convert you vehicle to run on vegetable oil. The reason is that, we can use waste vegetable oil or straight vegetable oil that has been used and wasted in hotels. This is a much cheaper source and can reduce our diesel costs by a lot.

Economics-

I believe that the soaring prices of the fossil fuels due to the supply and demand gap can be met by using vegetable oil as a fuel. It can save a lot of money. But SVO vehicles need to be curtailed to be used by only a few people. Unlike oil we cannot produce such massive quantities of used vegetable oil everyday. Even a few people switching to vegetable oil might improve the market equilibrium for oil resources (Note: The fuel issue is more political than the affect by market forces).

Today, in India the market equilibrium for fuel might be achieved at Rs.100. But the government ceils the price of fuel at Rs.50. At this price people are ready to buy more but there is a deficiency in supply. This deficiency can be reduced by using vegetable oil to meet the demands. (Produce shortages - Samuelson and Nordhaus, Economics)