Make your own Biodiesel! (trucks tv)

That was a repeat from a little back. I wonder if that stuff is approved for on road use? A substantial chunk of the pump price is federal and state tax, which obviously does not go into the cost of homemade biodiesel. Pretty interesting concept either way though.

GRGT1994 said:

I wonder if that stuff is approved for on road use? A substantial chunk of the pump price is federal and state tax, which obviously does not go into the cost of homemade biodiesel.

Click to expand...

I think you answered your own question. Though there may be a loophole for running biodiesel in personal vehicles. It's probably not legal to make in large quantities and sell for profit.

I really was only wondering about the personal use stuff. I couldn't imagine how selling the stuff could be legal.

I think Stacy David (what kind of name is that, they guy has two first names!), said on the show that it is only for off road use. Could be wrong on that though, it was a little while ago I saw that one.

I was looking into this to heat my house with, till I saw how much the kit itself costs... I am not looking forward to a good 'ol NE winter at $3 a gallon for oil...

I want to say I found a place that sold the kit for about $2k...

I E-mailed "Trucks" with some concerns after that episode ran about 6 months ago. They never responded. Here are the concerns. This was my response to the same idea in another forum a while back.

#1) You can't just throw dirty grease in your truck.
#2) 99% of restaurants have a contract with a grease recycling company to pick up their used oil, and once it is put in that companies container (behind the restaurant), removing it is theft (even if the people inside the restaurant tell you it's ok).
#3) My best friends dad owns the largest grease recycling company in Oklahoma, and he has a Chevy 6.5 Turbo diesel. We can fill their trucks all day long for free (including all the big rigs that go over the road), but they don't. We ran the Chevy on the stuff (with the required additive) for 22k miles. In that time, we had to replace the fuel injectors 3 times, and it eventually led to even bigger issues. With trial and error we were able to discover that to efficiently run on cooking oil without reliability issues, the quality of the product had to be at or very near "off the shelf" purity. Try pricing that stuff per gallon next time your at the grocery store. This company gets the used cooking oil for free, and they have the ability to purify the oil to that condition on site, and it is still (at this point in time) not cost effective to do so. We are light years ahead of the companies actually selling kits to make your own fuel (which will get no where near the purity needed to use reliably), and we still have big issues with reliability. With them, you make the original investment, they get their profit, and their done with it. Trust me, if there was a reliable way to run a diesel engine on the stuff right now, all the trucks at this company would be doing so. If you have to take the jump to find out for yourself, go right ahead. I'm just trying to warn you. On the positive side, the truck does make a lot more power, and it smells like a frenchfrier at WOT.

The even bigger issue is #2) above. Right now there are companies in many states that are fighting to get this enforced with up to a $1,000 fine. The more people start trying to suck out of these containers, the stronger that resistance is going to become. That used cooking oil is recycled, and used in cattle, and other livestock feed across the world. Companies in that market are not going to let people come take their "money" out of their containers.
Brandon