Friday, August 22, 2008

On the Road Again...The Veggie Train Part 1

I know this is sideways, but it's worth it anyways!

Today marks the first day of our Veggie Adventures in the Outback! Yesterday, we collected our first bit of used veggie oil. Mick spent hours night last night and this morning figuring out a proper filtering method for it, and now we are ready to go! We don't know WHERE we are going, but we do know HOW we will get there...on recycled vegetable oil...mixed with diesel of course.

We can run the truck on 20% veggie oil mixed with the regular diesel for now. As the temperature gets warmer, we can start increasing the percentage of oil that we can add to the tank, eventually saving up to 60% on fuel!

Does it stink, you may ask? Not too bad, actually. This first batch we picked up from a Thai food restaurant and it was actually pretty clean to start with. I have a feeling that we will run into some chunkier blends as we continue up north and have less options for oil collection.

This is basically a work in progress, and if all goes according to plan, we will be saving huge on fuel and emissions! This is something I've always wanted to do, so I'm pretty excited about it. I just hope it doesn't stuff up the engine! I wouldn't want to be stuck in the 100+ degree Outback with a dead motor! Wish us luck...

I'm a damn hippie, aren't I?