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.

Experimenting with a drip stove using a 1951 Yukon militairy stove

New Blog contributer joins with 2 decades of off-grid experience

I've been living Offgrid going on 2 decades now.
My trusty, yet ugly solar panels were burned brown with cracked cells even when I got them, yet still harvest 200watts on thier best day. Given the unfortunate truth of the toxins created manufacturing solar panels, I chose to get all the use possible from ones already made.
My new project will harnest the suns power stored in vegetable oil extracted from plants; first used by resturaunts to fry greasey food, then the remaining energy released and stored in batteries or used to power tools, with the remaining carbondioxide returned to the earth to complete the cycle. Again, the choice to use recycled oil, rather than support the use of agriculture for fuel production.

To do this I am using a replica of one off the earliest stationary diesel engines, which is still in production in India. I chose this design for its long lasting, time proven, clean burning, simple technology with very few moving parts. Again, considering the impact of manufacturing, I chose engine that may last for generations.

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...

The Big Green Bus Stops in Spokane




Yesterday at around 6:45 the Big Green Bus stopped in front of the almost finished Leed-Certified Saranac Community Building. There was a punk band inside who invited us over for Vegan cup cakes, after we finished transferring 45 gallons of waste vegetable oil over to their bus. Lucas and Merritt liked the filtered stuff and mentioned the only places with good oil so far they encountered were Taco Bell and Wendy's, they didn't like the stuff they found in McD.


They have a pretty good on-board filtering setup that allows them to just dip off the top of the grease bins, and filter through these in the rear.

Lucas shows the custom gauges and modifications, they have not needed to wire the Vegthems yet, as they maintain a nice and hot 180 degrees for the oil.

Esther shows off the floors inside, really nicely done by one of the sponsors, EcoTimber.

There were several bunk beds inside the bus. These 3 students were happy with the break from having to all be in this bus, there is not much room for 11 students. They enjoyed the quiet of Spokane, no big fanfare. Tomorrow they head off to Glacier, it was neat to visit with them and hopefully they will make lots of people think about energy and sustainability and then act upon this increased awareness. After all, like Edward Abbey said, "sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul".