Would You Use Veggie Oil to Fuel Your Vehicle?

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The federal government does require you to fill out the necessary registration forms to make biodiesel for your car but it does not charge a fee for doing so, according to Enesta Jones, a spokesperson for the EPA.

There is also a concern that vegetable oil cars might violate the federal Clean Air Act. The Act bans tinkering with auto emissions by anyone who doesn’t have EPA certification to do so, according to spokesperson John Millett. Using vegetable oil instead of diesel fuel could quite likely affect the emissions from your car, Millett says.

“Also, a vehicle has to be modified to run on vegetable oil.” Jones says. “Such a modification is not legal unless it has been through an emissions certification procedure — this is different than just registering the fuel — to ensure that the modified vehicle itself meets emission standards.”

With some state laws still very much up in the air, there are ways to play it safe if you’re not sure if you should be paying taxes or not. On his Web site, Graydon Blair, owner of Utah Biodiesel Supply, a parts distributor for home biodiesel brewers, suggests you keep a log of the gallons of biodiesel or veggie oil you burn. Then if you do get into trouble with the state tax authorities you can produce the log and tell them you plan on paying at tax time. State and federal income tax forms have provisions for paying fuel taxes, Blair says. (Consult your tax advisor for details on how to best handle taxes in your state. — Mother)

Straight Talk on Biodiesel, Veggie Oil

William Kemp is the author of Biodiesel Basics and Beyond, a how-to on making fuel from all manner of oil-producing plants. While he is an advocate of the technology, he offers a sobering assessment of its limitations in his answers here:

Mechanically, what is the difference between grease cars and biodiesel cars?
What it boils down to is biodiesel can be used with the existing fuel infrastructure of any diesel vehicle, while straight vegetable oil can’t be combusted in a modern diesel engine without modifications. Also, in grease cars you need a system to preheat the oil and filter it before the fuel can be combusted.

And what about the costs?
Straight vegetable oil has the advantage in that the cost and complexity of the fuel drops dramatically, compared to biodiesel. If you look at the costs of making biodiesel, 70 percent of the cost of the fuel is the feedstock — that’s the canola, soy or peanuts that are used to eventually produce the fuel. The rest of the cost is processing that feedstock. You don’t have those costs with straight-oil fuel, although capital costs must be amortized.

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