The Ethonal Scam

[JDoors]

... There is a company a few blocks from me that builds Grease Car conversion kits. So whenever I go for a walk I always see old VW Rabbits and Mercedes that smell like french fries.

For that reason alone, I vote for used vegetable oil!

On second thought, having the entire country smell like used grease? Eww.

On THIRD thought, we're all used to citys smelling like diesel, french fries would be a HUGE improvement!

Well, they can go live like Survivor Man , moving to the woods, and living without phone , electricity, running water, store bought food etc. But many will find that as he did their spouse is not that fanatic and neither is the majority of the planet. Most people will not go back to living like they did in the ancient past; we have come to rely on technology and appreciate its benefits.

That sentiment always reminds me of The Talking Heads' (Nothing But) Flowers, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR:

[Pete_C]

The vegetable oil approach has several problems.

First there is not enough to go around, even if we used all the vegetable oil we grow, and even then it would be more expensive than Diesel. With the increased "Biodeisel" demand I rarely see vegetable oil in the stores for under $1.99 a quart these days, $8 per gallon is a bit steep.

The demand for used vegetable oil to make bio diesel got so high that many places had to put locks on their grease traps since the stuff that commercial recyclers were willing to pay them for was being stolen by those seeking free fuel.

Second is, as mentioned it takes old diesel engines to run on vegetable oil. The new ones are much cleaner, but they require specific formulations with additives. When they were selling it as Biodiesel around here it turned out that it was 20% vegetable oil derivatives, 80% petroleum distillates.

Third is temperature; vegetable oil has distinct problems when it gets cold.

Fourth is the nutcase fringe. How long do you think it will be before someone files a suit saying that smelling these cars resulted in an incontrollable craving for fast food which resulted in obesity and heart disease ? Sue the owners of the cars and the makers of the fuel for not filtering out the smell.

Yes, recycling is important and used vegetable oil should not be wasted; but it is not a real solution any more than corn ethanol.

I think that the Chinese may be onto something with the new electric by BYD (Build Your Dream). They developed a new technology , ferrous batteries. These batteries are fully recyclable, made out of one of the most common recycled metals, contain no toxic heavy metals and do not pose a fire risk as do lithium ion batteries, and can take a full fast charge in ten minutes over and over and over.

BYD was originally a battery company, in fact it is the largest maker of rechargeable batteries in the world. Their entry into the electric car market is significant.

http://www.bydit.com.cn/doce/products/ups.asp

Benefits & Features :

A.Environment al Friendly

Without any heavy metal that does harm to health.

B.High Safety Performance

Fe battery will not catch fire under collision, over charged or short circuit. Fe battery could never explode even be disposed in fire.

C.High Energy Density

In the same capacity, the weight of Fe battery is one third of VRLA.The volume of Fe battery is one half of VRLA.

D.Long cycle life

Charging and discharging more than 2000 times in condition of 100% DOD.residual capacity is more than 80%.

E.Good Temperature Performance

Fe cell has good performance at different temperature, and could be used at -20~60.

F.High Power Output

90% nominal capacity released at C10 rate discharge.

G.Low Cost

Lower cost of the material and simpler process make Fe battery cheaper.

http://jalopnik.com/344737/detroit-auto-sh...ed-honda-accord

Can't find any specifics on what a ferrous battery is, maybe it takes advantage of the change of iron from ferrous to ferric state or maybe it is a nickel iron battery.

Or a combination?

http://www.springerlink.com/content/wt8021n347321475/

[isteve]

I know a guy that converted his old Mercedes to Vegie. He gets his oil from restaurants, his son made a part time business collecting old oil for free, filters it and sells it for I think .50 a gallon. Of course like I said we have a lot of grease cars where I live.

Hmmm... I'll have a big mac large, fry, coke and can you fill'er up.