Diesel engines are amazing, internal combustion engines that ignite their fuel by the sheer pressure created in the pistons. This phenomenon allows for other substance to explode in just the same manner, such as SVO or biodiesel.
SVO:
How does vegetable oil power a car? SVO can combust in a diesel engine just like diesel does. The main difference between putting SVO in your car instead of diesel is the viscosity of the SVO. Oil is heavier and thicker than diesel, and so for it to flow properly, there must be a heating element under the hood to thin out the oil. This is usually done with an inline heater. Additionally, most SVO conversions have an auxiliary pump to help retrieve the oil from the gas tank, and an additional fuel filter to ensure that the WVO was properly cleaned before being put in the tank. These conversions are best done on older cars, Mercedes years 1976 – 1984 are the best for the “do-it-yourself” conversion. However, there are several auto mechanic shops in the Midwest that do conversions on brand-new diesel vehicles (such as the TDI VW Jetta) for a higher price tag. As LEAF grows and matures as a company, we will offer these SVO conversion and service to our customers, in addition to being just a fueling station.
Rudolph Diesel, creator of the Diesel engine, originally designed the engine to run on coal dust in mind, and then modified his vision it to run on vegetable oil because he thought that this would be attractive to farmers who already have this resource on hand. And he was absolutely right. Vegetable oil is derived from crops easily accessible above ground (not thousands of miles beneath the earths surface or sea level) and you don’t have to wait millions of years for it to generate. Vegetable Oil is also already being produced in large quantities for the food industry and would be an otherwise unwanted byproduct that is discarded. Instead, Lono would be setting up relationships with restaurants in the area to pick up, filter for cleaning, and then re-use by putting it in our cars.
The diagram below is our prototype filter system up that we plan on building inside the Eartha Ltd Warehouse. The filter system is simple, use heat, gravity and a 1-micron sock filter to clean the WVO that we pick up from restaurants. Because WVO will eventually filter itself slightly when settled, we will start out with filling four 55-gallon barrel drums with WVO, which will sit and settle for 2 weeks at a time to allow for the junk to settle to the bottom. Then, this oil will be manually pumped into a heated, elevated barrel that is attached to a drip nozzle for controlled filtering. Eventually, this oil will have gone through the 1-micron filter and will be ready for use as fuel for a SVO converted vehicle. The idea is to start a SVO Cooperative where veggie-car drivers can come with WVO and trade it in for clean SVO by pumping it themselves. However, LEAF is not opposed to selling the clean SVO to customers just looking to fill up. We can sell the clean SVO fuel for less than $2/gal.
BIODIESEL:
The prevalence of the insistent petroleum industry has shrouded biodiesel technology much as they “killed the electric car” the first time around. Biodiesel works just like diesel, no vehicle modifications and no conversions are necessary to burn biodiesel. The idea is that you can take almost any type of oil extract (vegetable oil, peanut oil, allegorical oil, etc…) and can easily convert it to biodiesel by putting it into a converter machine that adds a small amount of lye and methanol to reduce its viscosity. The great thing about biodiesel is that it can be run in any diesel engine, which already exists today. It does have some trouble if it gets too cold out, but that can be remedied with line heaters. Similar to the SVO process, we would collect WVO from restaurants, filter it, and then put it in a conversion machine, which converts it to biodiesel.
The kits seen here, and others like it, are available in the market today and would be very easy to assemble. LEAF can also manufacture the conversion machine piece by piece for a lower price, between $2000 - $3000. We could modify a diesel F-350 dually truck to burn SVO and use it as a collection vehicle that goes from restaurant to restaurant. To go one step further, we could even build a biodiesel conversion system right in the bed of the truck so we could pull up to a waste container of oil, pump it, and drive away with clean oil in the truck’s attached tank ready for delivery to one of our customers. LEAF will be working with associates that have built a biodiesel machine for a graduate project out of Cincinnati. We are still calculating the price per gallon for biodiesel, but we are fairly certain that if we use WVO and build the system ourselves, we can keep the cost of biodiesel low enough to entice diesel customers.
The bottom line is, if we can grow our own food, then we can grow our own fuel and be truly self-sufficient. It is ingrained in American society to be “free”, and LEAF believes we can help Ohio be truly free knowing that homegrown fuel is available for your vehicle and that it was made within 100 miles of where it is being sold. Made in the USA. Bringing more jobs home. Talk about a cash crop.
