California dreamers do it with vegetable oil

Published Jul 14, 2006

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Los Angeles, California - A small but growing group in Los Angeles is responding to soaring petrol prices, global warming and concern over the war in Iraq by replacing fossil fuels with alternatives.

Clean-fuel vehicle mechanic and salesman Brian Friedman can't keep up with demand and says he is selling 20 vegetable-oil fuelled cars a week.

His shop, just east of Hollywood, is called Love Craft and is overflowing with 100 mostly late 1970's to early 1980's Mercedes diesel cars waiting to be converted.

Friedman said: "It's not just the environmental hippie types that are interested in making the switch - we even get rednecks in pick-up trucks like this Ford F150 bakkie.

Friedman has seen growing interest from farmers seeking to convert their equipment, a surprising niche in a city defined by car culture. He also sells conversion kits direct to mechanically inclined customers.

Love Craft's cars run on either recyled or fresh vegetable oil, which Friedman recommends because it eliminates the need for industrial refinement.

Bio-diesel fuel is processed to remove glycerine from the vegetable oil molecules to make it compatible with standard diesel engines; it requires no conversion in a warm climate such as that of like Los Angeles.

Bio-diesel mechanic Tom Francis explained: "You've got to make it simple, for a busy person who wants to get out of the wrong vehicle and into the right one."

Rudolf Diesel, who invented the diesel engine in 1894, planned to run his creations on peanut oil.

In May 2006 two fuel stations on the west side of Los Angeles began pumping bio-diesel made from Californian walnut oil at $3.49 a US gallon (about R6.60 a litre)

Francis belongs to a biodiesel co-operative.

"This is Los Angeles," he said, "where we're not supposed to be thinking about these sorts of things.

"People here are particularly distracted and preoccupied, and to have biodiesel available at a commercial pump is a huge triumph."

The co-operative takes credit for highlighting the demand for commercial alternative fuel. Its members were tired of driving 160km to get bio-diesel so they banded together to operate a 3700-litre tank in west Los Angeles.

Jump start

Within three months, says Francis, a commercial garage introduced bio-diesel and eliminated the need for the co-operative - so they moved east, closer to central Los Angeles, hoping to have the same jump-starting effect.

People are looking at that petrol nozzle and don't feel good about it," said Francis. "They're deciding to act."

Customer Chris Salvaterra, who drove a Toyota Prius hybrid for three years, was looking forward to the arrival of his bio-diesel car.

"It's the next step off the petroleum grid," he said. "Maybe next I'll switch to pure veggie oil." - AFP

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