Driving the old truck on garbage from one end of the US to the other (and back)

Getting ready to take the truck on a trip of almost 4000 miles without stopping at a gas station, by carrying all the fuel. There are several advantages; I know this fuel is clean and filtered well, less risk of getting stranded with clogged filters and a tank full of more of the same, and I have a surplus due to some issues with the truck that kept me from driving it much over the winter. So below you are seeing 45 cubies of oil, in addition to a 40 gallon tank. Each cube contains about 5 gallons.We'll see how this goes.

 

Update: The trip went great, almost 4000 miles, no issues and no need to stop at gas stations. Next time I'll try and filter some down in So California.

Grease Truck back online

Some info for folks who may run into the same issue. The greasecar kit for trucks comes with a 40 gallon aluminum tank, which is custom made with seams at the bottom. I think this may not be standard, as it makes little sense from design perspective. These seams in my case split after a few years of driving. In my case the designers and makers of the tank folded the aluminum sides down, with the seams at the bottom, rather than at the top. Of course at the bottom of a large tank is the most pressure from the heavy fuel. In addition if the tank gets hot, it expands with the grease. Greasecar added a second air pressure release in the hatch plate in newer versions of the tank to minimize additional air pressures.


After pumping out the WVO, draining some of the coolant, and unplugging it, it had to be very thoroughly cleaned, as aluminum welding will not work with impurities. The lid that accesses the copper coil and fuel intake will need to come off as well. So the task is to grind it down at the seams, both with a grinder and then with a wire brush to get the oxidized layer off. Then clean it inside as well (try a radiator shop for that part). Even then you can count on some residual in the cracks. So once it was finally welded, both seams at the bottom to be save, then you want to go over it and find the pin holes. The test is to put a gallon of paint thinner into the tank and feel with paper towel at the seams of both sides, to pinpoint any further pinhole leaks. In this case there were no more leaks. Hook it all back up, silicone the lid back on and good to go.

The image below shows what the copper coil looks like after almost 30K miles or 3/4 years of driving. Ideally you leave the oil level above this coil, so that you don't get corrosion or algae growing on it.

Grease Competition heats up in Spokane

New signs, and various stories of people bidding on grease are going around in Spokane. One of my restaurants now has this threatening sticker on the barrel, looks like I'm not going here again.



There are now three big companies who more or less own the Spokane market:

Baker Commodities - Supposedly ships all the grease to California
Greasespot - Supposedly ships all their oil to Seattle for biodiesel
Bartlett Greasecar - intends to sell biodiesel locally here in Spokane and intends to take a big chunk out of Baker and Greasespot

Then there are the greasecars and homebrew biodiesel folks here in Spokane, since most don't advertise they are doing it, it could be a few hundred home brewers and greasecars here.

WVO (waste vegetable oil) burner

Experimenting with the same principles as used in the truck (getting the oil hot so it vaporizes, combusts, and flows easily). There are biodiesel stoves out there, notably the kuma stove that is being sold across the State border in Hayden, Idaho. But again, I don't like the idea of putting more effort/resources into making bio diesel, when surely something can be done with just straight veggie.



It works very simple, get a fire going hot, then turn on the valve, and let it drip on something that is hot as well, and it will sustain itself, well not consistently with a 1/4 inch copper tube. This is where others start adding compression and fans etc to make it consistent.... For me it is just experimenting, not getting too technical. The oil gets stuck sometimes in the needle valve, presumably because at that point the oil is only room temperature, I'm using a lot of hydrogenated stuff that I don't really want to put into the truck. Continue to experiment. The nice thing is that I can use the really bottom of the barrel oil for this purpose.

Couple of observations:

- When it is a good fire, it is really hot, I have never seen our stove get this hot with wood, there are several metal layers in the top of the stove to get a clean burn, and the top can still get red-hot, even with a fan blowing air over it, to get the hot air out of the insert. One has to be cautious with this stuff, if there is anything flamable near that stove. There is about 2 feet of copper tubing in the stove, so when it is hot, and the drip is not very fast, it will come out vaporized, like a torch. It also helps to have the oil warmed coming in. (which you pretty much have to do when it is hydrogenated anyway)

- The black light fluffy stuff is I assume soot, or unburned fuel. If not very hot, you get a coat on the metal in the stove, so I crank it up periodically and put some more wood in as well, this burns it off in the stove. Will have to examine the chimney at some point to see how that looks. Probably bigger issue with smaller flue. When looking at what comes out of the chimney, during a good hot burn, there is just heat, hardly any smoke, so clean burn. When just a small burn, you see the fluffy stuff fly out, as well as a little black smoke, not more than a wood fire though.

- Putting some grease in a metal bucket and letting it boil in the fire, will also create a really fast hot burning fire, once it starts boiling, but the dripping allows much more control.

Both our stove dealer and a fire fighter didn't think this is a good idea, (this is to be expected, since this is an unpredictable fuel) so I'm not advocating it, nor doing it at this point, as our dogs ran off with a grease rag and leaked it on the nice couch...

Reasons for Converting to Straight Vegetable Oil

This will probably change some, some of these reasons also apply to Biodiesel users, however SVO has the added advantage of not dealing with Methanol and caustic soda or lye and further heating, using more energy..)

-- Decreasing our dependence of foreign oil. (The latest stat was that we rely 65 % on foreign oil, or 13.2 imported barrels a day)
http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20050720134711-47263.pdf

-- Diversification and de-centralization of energy sources (The potato blight or great Irish famine taught, or should have taught all of us that planting one crop, or putting your eggs in one basket is not a sensible, sustainable, survival strategy, same with energy sources, diversification is the key to long term survival, preferable using sources that decrease our harm/resource footprint)

-- Recycling waste restaurant oil makes sense (this stuff has a lot of energy in it, I get pretty much the same mileage and power from this as from regular dino diesel) Some folks would add that running on waste oil saves them money, this would primarily apply to people with large daily commutes. I have invested about 1500 dollars in the setup and use the bike several days in the week as well as telecommute one day out of five. Also not counting buying an old diesel truck, so I don't see it making money any time soon)

-- Recycling waste heat from the engine to make the oil thinner, or lower it's viscosity (so that it gets close to that of diesel and prevents coking or gelling). I read somewhere that the engine produces enough waste heat when running to heat a house, this is very inefficient, so re-using this waste heat makes sense.

-- 50 + percent reduction in particulates

-- Carbon Neutral, doesn't contribute to global warming.

-- No sulfur (the stuff that causes acid rain and cancer and is bad for your health)

-- sulfur is added to diesel for lubrication, well, vegetable oil lubricates even better and doesn't need it added. (when I switch to vegetable oil, I hear a reduction in engine knocking, it just seems to go a bit smoother, some folks say it is less noisy, perhaps someone can do an audio test)

-- Help the local farmers grow canola or rape seed as a rotation crop and an extra source of income (again not putting all the eggs in one basket seems to be key in survival), it doesn't have to replace food crops, and rotation crops help retain the precious top soil, a clear win-win for the farmer and the land, assuming the farmer is using sustainable practices. If I were a farmer I'd add some windmills and or solar panels, fast growing living fences that are harvestable, as well to generate additional income on those windy hills. Basically diversification.

-- Re-using existing diesel vehicles to create a hybrid is cheaper than buying a new hybrid that is still dependent on fossil fuel. In other words, if you can't afford a 20 thousand dollar vehicle, but still want to have a hybrid, this is the cheapest route. If you have a gasser, you could still have a hybrid, take the car half way to work, and bike or walk or take the bus, that cuts your fuel costs in half, and feels good physically. You can then throw out the gym membership as well, as now you get your exercise when going and coming to work.

-- Re-connecting with other members of the community, with the farmers that grow our food and fuel, re-learning to share equipment and resources, rooted in an understanding that we are in this together and that we're not so separate as we have been conditioned to think, this has nothing to do with some romantic notion, it is key to long term survival and increasing wealth to many, rather than concentrating it for a few at the cost of others. Everyone has something unique to contribute to this world but few realize their potential and their right to inhabit this world and be respected as much as the next person. Much of our conditioning is still based on the fictious concepts of class/color/gender etc.. separations, certain people are special and the rest are "lesser" who need to be put into complacency. It is easier to control others and disempower humans when you have convinced them they are of lower value to the world.

Below are some thoughts and reflections that seem to want articulation and that may or may not be of interest, for what it's worth..

If one slows down, and looks around, one can see beauty all around. An obvious example is when you stand on a mountain in the desert and you look at this display and sharing of unconditional beauty. But as Joe Campbell used to say, seeing it in the mountains is easy, seeing it in the slums of Detroit is a bigger challenge.

The birds sing their songs regardless of who is listening, the mountains show their beauty and play with the light and clouds, why can't we humans too, share ourselves unconditionally? Is any flower or mountain exactly the same? No, they all have something unique and can be appreciated for that, so we too can share our uniqueness unconditionally. Value judging ourselves, and consequently others, has created a big boundary that I believe keeps us from walking on the "pollen path" as the Navajo call it. What is the pollen path? You're on it...................However, your sight might be obscured, clouded, covered up.

I believe running an old polluting vehicle and transforming it into something less harmful, without building new vehicles is a nice way to make the transition to a sustainable lifestyle, and re-use what we have. Transformation of oneself into something that is less harmful seems to influence those things around us that were also the products of the state of our minds at the time. If you change your relationship to yourself and the world, the world inevitably starts reflecting this different relationship in small but noticeable ways (some would argue that it takes transcendent endurance to see the changes, but I don't think it is that bad).

It is therefore logical to see what is around us and what we have created as a reflection of our own inner state of mind. Thoughts are seeds that when cultivated and watered in our minds crystallize outward. It doesn't take much reflection to realize the implication of responsibility we have for our own thoughts and their resulting consequences that ripple outward. I don't believe in a distinct right and left, I believe we all want happiness, the trick is finding out an imperfect but workable win-win route for all parties involved, this is a process fraught with trial and error, hard for the perfectionists in ourselves, but doable with some patience and creativity and perhaps most important of all, humility.