Any of you use vegetable oil on diesels?
 

Hello! I'm curious if any of you do this, veggie oil in diesels! I'm looking into it but I'm not sure my car will take it particularly well, but definitely a cool option.

Also - any resident UK-ers here? I've inherited a car and was wondering what taxes I'll pay if I sold it as I have no use and it's SORN rn. Had a look at a tax calculator and got some numbers but not convinced if that's right - any advice? (any input appreciated though! :) )

Thanks!

Some vegetable oil can be burned with diesel fuel.
But in newer diesels no vegetable oil can be used because it makes the fuel too thick.

Welcome to Ecomodder.

When I got my diesel car, I put in a few tanksfull [tankfulls?]

But there is only one dealer in the county. I have a car that burns clear (ethanol-free) premium and there are two choices the same distance away. The convenience of being able to pull into any station and finding what I want seduced me.

Biodiesel Retailer Listings - Biodiesel.org

Have you searched on "biodiesel [your location]"?

What car is that? Does it already have a DPF? If it doesn't have that, you'd be supposed to be safe with some vegetable oil blend (up to 20%). With some pre-heating of the fuel, you could even try 100% vegetable oil. If the car is fitted with direct injection, it would be advised to crank on regular Diesel fuel and allowing the engine to reach its operating temperature before switching to the veg oil. Some older irons with indirect injection on the other hand tend to deal better with veg oil.

Lectify, tell us more about your diesel vehicle.
 

I have used waste vegetable oil (WVO) in my old Mercedes Diesels as well as my Sprinter Vans and Dodge Cummins trucks. They all are capable of using WVO but with specific caveats.

I used to run my Mitsubishi L200 pickup on 20/80 ratio of diesel/SVO. In really cold weather I'd substitute a percentage of the diesel for petrol, never had a problem. It was all preheated etc.

On the plus side it was cheap, with virgin veg less than half the price of diesel. It's also low carbon, as the carbon emitted was only what the plant had extracted from the environment while growing (ignoring any inefficiencies caused by fuels used during cultivation of the crop and transporting the fuel).

The downside is that it's horrifically polluting, simply awful for particulates and nitrous oxides, so its really, really nasty for Human respiratory health. I wouldn't do it knowing what I know now.

I'm in England and can't see that you'd pay any taxes for selling the vehicle, unless you're running a vehicle sales business.

In the US about the time vegetable oil and diesel became the same price, suddenly and mysteriously the price of vegetable oil doubled.

I still do it.
Think about it this way, NOx and PM are local pollutants, CO2 is a global pollutant.

Local or global was small consolation when my neighbours kid died of a pollution related asthma attack and my best efforts couldn't save here. People are dying today of local pollutants, not in 50 years.

That recalibrated me completely - I refuse to use an engine for a journey I can walk or cycle, which puts me within a 15 or so mile radius, which turns out to be about 98% of my journeys. The only exception I make to that rule is for SAR callouts (I'm a SAR volunteer).

AFAIK the use of veg oils do increase the NOx emissions, but not the particulate matter. Well, at least as long as the injector pump is correctly adjustes. When it comes to NOx, recently I noticed some are actually used for medical purposes, including after complex surgical procedures.

Worred about tail pipe pollution?
Drive an electric or stuff it.

I drive an electric and I even bought a 10kw portable fast charger so I can drive it more.

Im not worried about tailpipe pollution per se - all airborne pollution concerns me.

Simply moving the emissions from tailpipe to smoke stack achieves little on its own, and that is negated by the additional environmental impact of manufacturing electric cars and their batteries over conventional vehicles.

Electric cars, great, I'm all for them and my next vehicle will for sure be electric. However, I'm not conning myself into beliving that they alone solve anything while we're still largely burning fossil fuels to power them.

The Leaf is one of the worst examples. Replacing a 1600kg petrol car with a 1600kg electric one is laughable, and then driving it around with only the drivers seat occupied is an utterly ridiculous proposition.

The only coal fired power plants still operating in the US have scrubbers to wash out sulfur dioxide, bag houses to catch fly ash and flue gas recirculation to reduce NOx and improve efficiency.
Those are the dirtiest power plants we use.
Just in 2017 the US permanently shut down 17 gigawatts worth of old outdated coal power plants.

I spend a maximum of $36 on electricity per month to drive 1,500 miles per month. Yeah it's pretty ridiculous.

The ore and brineing processing that extracts the cobalt and lithium is pretty bad. A lot of these self proclaimed eco freaks wouldn't touch an electric car if they know what went into them.

And what powers the scrubbers? Yep, you guessed it, more fossil fuel.

I am genuinely all for cleaner technologies, but that takes to time to develop and generations for the public to adopt. We could achieve massive improvements by this afternoon by simp,y not using our cars for unnecessary or short journeys, but I'm more likely to see Michelle Obama at a Merle Haggard concert than have that happen.

It's up to us enlightened few to set the example, lead the way, but I suspect were pushing in the wind and ultimately too late.

I would like to see more nuclear power.

I was talking to my neighbor the other day and he said "We need to have solar-powered cars."

I said "We do. All three necessary components are available now from Tesla."

That's a good point. I often see people obsessed about EVs claiming their motors are smaller and require a much lower maintenance than any ICE, but they seem to forget about the weight penalty and energy density of batteries still lower than conventional fuels. Had it been effectively about saving natural resources, I'm sure most of those EVs would be based into something inherently more efficient such as those kei-cars.

In 2001 someone told me "Solar cars are as viable as wind-powered cars."

I do not believe that has changes substantially since.

Very viable, unless you try to put them on the car.
If you want a solar powered car put the panels on your house and use the power to charge the cars batteries. Wind idem.
Or combined.
When there's no sun there's wind. Wind comes from where the sun don't shine :D

Wind power seems out of question at all, while solar-powered cars may eventually work in the Brazilian Northeast.