Running on Biodiesel, FINALLY!

It's been a great week. After at least six years of research and anticipation I am finally biodiesel powered!

I can't remember when I first heard about biodiesel but I believe it was sometime in the summer or fall of 1999. I grew up in rural upstate New York - classic farm country - with tons of diesel engines. At one time my family owned two VW rabbits that my parents would fill up at the tank at my grandfather's farm just a couple hundred yards up the road (pretty sure that's illegal btw). They would drop me off with my grandmother in the morning and fill up at the large, greasy, malodorous diesel tank we used for the tractors. I always thought that was pretty weird/cool. None of my other friends from farming families had a scam like that going, the Swimms hate paying extra taxes. Years later I was amazed to find out that the inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolf Diesel, had actually intended it to run on vegetable oil with the idea that farmers could produce it themselves.

Fast forward fifteen years or so to 1999. I was just finished with college, obsessed with the internet and reading everything about renewable energy, bamboo architecture, and alternative fuels I could. I had just moved to Chicago and had no money or room for anything so I immersed myself in learning about all the great new thinks happening in that space. I saw the famous "'Fat of the Land'":http://www.lardcar.com/lardcar1.html video that year and I was hooked. That summer I took some time off my programming job and moved to Taos NM for a few months to build Earthships. The folks down there were really into biodiesel. And while I heard a few people in town were messing around with it, I never got to meet them or see any biodiesel in person. At that point if you were using biodiesel you were brewing it yourself, so without a garage or a diesel car I knew I would have to be patient.

In the middle of 2001 I moved to Hawaii and quickly found out about "Pacific Biofuels":http://www.biodiesel.com/. I lived within ten miles of their pump in Honolulu but I didn't have or need a car. And since I knew (unfortunately) that I wouldn't be in Hawaii long I didn't buy one. I was able to work from my apartment and the beach was only a ten minute bike ride away.

Towards the end of 2003 I relocated to Chapel Hill, NC to start a new business. It turns out this is one of the absolute best areas in the country for biodiesel. Piedmont Biofuels, a local coop that I am now a member of, has been doing an amazing job over the last couple of years of educating people about biodiesel as well as serving as a distributor to the community. About six months ago the combination of work becoming slightly less time intensive and my old saturn wagon getting long in the tooth, spurred me to start looking for a used Jetta.

I quickly discovered that used diesels are hard to come by. First off only 1% of americans are driving them. Secondly it seems that the folks who drive diesels tend to be the type that keep them for a long, long, time. I found a few, but they were extremely expensive for their milage, usually somewhere around 10-12k dollars for 100 - 160k miles. Even though diesel engines last a long time the rest of the vehicle has a hard time keeping up around the 120k mile mark. With my still insane work schedule requiring a reasonably dependable vehicle, I decided that I would wait for the right one to come along.

The market kind of dried up around the holidays, but all of a sudden last week there were a ton of low mileage (~50k) Jettas for sale. I think the sudden surplus was caused by the TDI version of the new '06 Jetta becoming available but I can't confirm that. I made a few calls and all of a sudden had a beautiful condition silver Jetta automatic with only 63k miles on it for under 15k. Step one complete!

The TDI Jetta is really the perfect vehicle for biodiesel because they are incredibly fuel efficient (many people report getting mileage from the mid 40s to the low 50s). I could go buy an old late eighties Mercedes but getting 18 miles a gallon would kind of defeat the purpose. The same thing goes for Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, and trucks. Renewable fuel without efficiency and conservation doesn't get us in a much better position than we are now. Especially with all the cars that will be sold into the BRIC countries in the next twenty years. I am actually very surprised that Volkswagen - as the sole producer of affordable diesels in America - hasn't tried harder to accept biodiesel. Obviously it is a miniscule percentage of the population, but with the attention Honda and Toyota have garnered with hybrids I would think it is worth the eco-publicity alone.

Step two was securing a steady supply of fuel. Like I said before the Triangle area of North Carolina is a biodiesel drivers dream come true. In the last two years Piedmont Biofuels has set up five tanks around the area for coop members to use. I am lucky enough to have one less than a mile from my apartment, and another about 2.3 miles from my office. On Saturday morning I called up Mark from "Bull City Biofuels":http://bullcitybiodiesel.org/ who runs one of the pumps with Piedmont in Durham. He met me at the pump, showed me the ropes for pumping and paying, and ten minutes later I drove off running on vegetable oil (I showed up running on diesel fumes of course). It was insanely easy, almost to easy. The only caveat is that they had to add some petroleum diesel to the tank to keep it from gelling during the recent cold snap that we have had. So I had to settle for B80 rather than B100 for my inaugural tank. (Biodiesel is always rated with its percentage B20 for example is 20% Biodiesel, 80% petroleum diesel) I can live with that for now. Step two complete!

So that's it so far. I have commuted to work two days already and it feels fantastic. One nice thing about starting out on this during the spring is a have a long time to figure out what my cold weather strategy will be before next winter. I would love to be able to run B100 all winter long. The hydrogen and EV people will tell you about the extensibility problems with biodiesel. But the reality is it is here now and works today. Biodiesel is well within the reach of most people in terms of time and money. And that is good enough for me.

For step three I am planning on documenting all the issues that arise from driving a car on biodiesel here in the coming months and years. If you are thinking about converting to biodiesel and have any questions that I may be able to help with please use the link in the right hand column and send me an email. Although there are tons of sites and people on the internet with way more knowledge than me, I will be happy to share any information I have, as well as give my honest opinions (both good and bad).

Success!