On sunday morning on Sky news I saw an article about using old oil from fish
and chip shops.One man on a small scale collected from his local fish shops
and then filtered the oil added I think a drop of sodium sulphate (not being a
chemist I do not no what this was for)) and then to proceeded to run his car
without any problems .He had quiet a cottage industry in his Garage.
The second ran it as a large business collecting old cooking oil and refurbing
something like 40000 litres a week I think .He also had a webb site but was unable to
jot it down.It was something like www.oldoil.co.uk I am sure somebody can find it.
Buy the way Aldi here in Germany have cottened on to where all there cooking
oil is going and have put the price up .
Regards Andy Bairsto
Dresden
Germania
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I came across a 147kB PDF file (use Adobe Acrobat's viewer available free from www.adobe.com) via the message boards at www.fool.co.uk
This is the file - believe as much of it as you dare!
ftp://telnet.humboldt1.com/hpfiles/extras/biodisel72.pdf
Or try clicking here if it's a link
Essentially it's about making biodiesel (and soap as a byproduct) from vegetable or nut oil, including used frying oil or the likes of rapeseed oil.
"lye" mentioned in the article is sodium or potassium hydroxide, I believe (try looking it up at www.dictionary.com) and is mentioned as the "cracking agent". It's a strong alkali often used from drain cleaning, so be careful with it!
Apparently it actually has extended the life of vehicles compared to normal diesel oil due to improved lubrication properties.
I believe you officially need to pay fuel tax on it in the UK, and probably the rest of the EU too. However, I think biodiesel has lower taxation than petroleum-derived diesel.
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Did any of you see the program on CH4 on Saturday evening late called Coconut Revolution? It was a documentary of how the people of Booganville Island (part of Papua New Guinea - but geographically closer to the Soloman Islands) had revolted against a mining company ruining their environment. Their revolt turned into a revolution of independence from PNG and resulted - among other attrocities - in the total blockade of the island by the PNG government. The blockade cost the lives of many of the islanders due to shortage of medicines, food and the like. Fuel supplies were also cut off and only just lately have been reinstated. Their blockade has lasted around 7 years. In this time the Booganville people developed their own form of fuel for their trucks from coconut oil. I believe they said it took 11 coconuts to make 1 litre of oil. This was all produced by hand it seemed - but where there is a will there is a way.
They claimed that their trucks do more mpg on coconut oil than on diesel - but then if you had to do the same work for each litre you would probably claim the same, and they also claimed that they were less polluting (maybe it just smells better).
Anyway, they had used the blockade as an opportunity for developing new self-sufficient techniques (including their own make-shift hydro power) which they otherwise would not have discovered. They felt that the western world had much to learn from them as a result.
I felt it was a real documentary of hope.
Running their own vehicles on self-made coconut oil for 7 years is quite an achievement by any standards - even if used for only absolutely necessary journeys.
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