Green Daily

I'm a huge fan of mad scientists. Whether they're fictional ones like Victor Von Frankenstein and Henry Jeckyll, or real-life ones like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, I can't help but root for the crazy guy out on the fringes, trying to kick-start the next big scientific revolution.

Needless to say, I'm a big fan of James Dyson.

Ever since my wife first showed my one of Dyson's vacuums, three years ago, I was impressed with his amazing ingenuity. To be honest, I also liked the fact that his vacuum looked like the booster rocket on a Soviet-era space probe. Granted, we only had a few small carpets in our house, but I was still half-inspired to shell out a couple hundred dollars to pick up one of Dyson's marvels. Unfortunately, I already had a Eureka vacuum that was both fully-functional and fully paid off.

Years ago, I owned a 1980 Mercedes 300D sedan. It was a diesel-powered car, which meant that it shook like a dog coming out of a bath, smelled like an oil spill, and had a funny metallic-bubbling sound. On the other hand, it cost very little to fill up, sipped fuel, was exceedingly comfortable, and was built like a tank. Admittedly, the car accelerated very slowly; my friend Mike Germana once described it as having the pickup of a dying mule. Still, I was able to drive from southwest Virginia to northeast Pennsylvania on a single tank of gas, so I can't really complain. By the time I got rid of Helga the Benz, she had over a quarter of a million miles on her and the engine was still humming (or at least gurgling metallically).

Recently, looking through the newspaper, I saw a picture of Helga, or at least one of her sisters. The article in question dealt with diesel cars that have been reworked to run on vegetable oil from fast food restaurants. Apparently, old Mercedes diesels are particularly well-suited to this kind of modification; I've since discovered that two of the major refitting companies both work with that particular car.

It's not surprising that people are refitting diesels. Supposedly, Rudolf Diesel's original intention was to create a car that could run on plant-derived fuels, although the emergence of plentiful, cheap petroleum made that goal unnecessary. Regardless, diesel cars are fully capable of running on vegetable oil, as long as it is possible to reduce the viscosity (thickness) of the oil. Some solutions to this problem include combining vegetable oil and other fuels or heating the oil to make it thinner.

Lovecraft Biofuels has developed an inexpensive, easily installed system for retrofitting diesel cars to use vegetable oil. They charge between $870 and $1245 for a full conversion, which they do in one of their garages, either in Los Angeles or Portland, Oregon. However, if you can't make it to one of Lovecraft's facilities, they will send the conversion kit to you for a mere $595. You can then install it yourself or have it done by someone at your local garage. The best part of Lovecraft's system is that, by heating the vegetable oil, they make it unnecessary to add other fuels.