RUN YOUR DIESEL ON SOYBEAN OIL

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So, being a curious guy, I got on the phone to MIT and asked the folks there to send me a copy of the thesis ... fully expecting that it would describe some sort of complicated and expensive mechanical conversion that would have to be finished before the diesel could run on vegetable fuel.

However, the thesis didn't recommend any such thing. In fact, it stated that the authors had just poured the oil in and fired 'er up. "Well," I said to myself, "nothing's that simple ... there must be a catch."

So I picked up a gallon of diesel fuel and a gallon of soybean oil and took them to the college's shop. Dr. Donald Hudson—who taught the course in Advanced Power Mechanics—was as curious about my experiment as I was ... and he teststarted the shop's 600-horsepower Cummins turbocharged J-model diesel. The engine, of course, ran perfectly on diesel fuel.

Then, knowing that the Cummins was in working order, I disconnected the fuel lines, drained the tank, and—once everything was reconnected—poured in the gallon of vegetable oil.

The engine came to life with a roar ... and the smell of a hundred burning skillets filled the shop. It worked!

That successful experiment caused me to read further into the MIT thesis. The authors of that paper found that soybean oil actually produced more power — per pound — than did diesel fuel itself! Which seems to mean that the vegetable product would deliver more miles per gallon than would the petroleum derivative.

The most obvious disadvantage of using vegetable oil as fuel is cost. Diesel fuel is still relatively inexpensive in this country ... at least in comparison with soybean oil and so forth. However, if your diesel Volkswagen is running on fumes and you're 50 miles from the nearest truck stop, it sure makes sense to pull up to a grocery store—should one happen to be nearby—and throw a gallon of vegetable oil in the fuel tank ... instead of resorting to a tow truck, calling a faithful friend, or any other time- and/or moneyconsuming alternative.

And who knows ... as new techniques for extracting plant oils are developed (especially if those discoveries are accompanied by petroleum prices substan tially higher than today's), "soybean power" may just come Into its own!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Michael Brown's major work on petroleum alternatives, Brown's Alcohol Motor Fuel Cookbook, is available from Mother's Bookshelf (P.O. Box 70, Hendersonville, North Carolina. 28739) for $9.95 plus 95¢ shipping and handling.

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