As car owners across the US grapple with pumped-up gas prices, some are turning to their favorite restaurants for a solution: recycled vegetable oil.
Environmentalists with diesel cars have used vegetable oil for years as an alternative fuel to cut back on sooty emissions, but as gas prices soar above US$0.526 a liter, they say their "veggie cars" are a great way to save cash.
Every two weeks, Etta Kantor drives to a local Chinese restaurant to fuel her blue Volkswagen Jetta. She calls ahead and the owner puts aside a few buckets of used oil for her. At home, Kantor uses a colander and a bag filter to remove water and any food particles.
The vegetable oil is then poured into a 57-liter tank in the back of her Jetta, where a spare tire would usually be kept. With a touch of a button located above the radio, Kantor can switch from diesel fuel to vegetable oil in seconds.
"Oh, I zip around town, go fast on highways. It's not any different," said Kantor, 58.
Restaurants that would have to pay to get rid of their old vegetable oil are happy to give it away for free.
"It saves us a couple of dollars and it helps to save the environment a bit so I thought, `Why not?'" said Shawn Reilly, a co-owner of Eli's On Whitney, a restaurant in Hamden.
Reilly estimates it costs as much as US$60 a month to have the oil removed otherwise.
Bridgeport resident Aaron Schlechter says he picks up between 114 and 152 liters twice a month from Eli's. He uses it to fuel his car for his 270km commute every day to his job as an environmental consultant in Staten Island, New York.
"The only way that I can assuage my guilt by driving this awful distance is by driving something that isn't consuming fossil fuels and has much more environmentally friendly emissions," Schlechter said.
Vegetable oil is becoming so popular that a Massachusetts company called Greasecar is buying it in bulk from a distributor and selling it to local customers. It's priced at US$0.237 a liter, said company founder Justin Carven.
Since 2001, Greasecar has also been selling conversion kits, like the one in Kantor's car, that allow diesel cars to run on the recycled oil. About 200 kits were sold in the past year, Carven said. A standard conversion kit sells for US$800 at Greasecar.
"Once you install it, though, you are saving hundreds and hundreds of dollars," Carven said. "The product usually pays for itself within the first year."
Cars that have a conversion kit have two fuel systems, one that operates on diesel and the other on the recycled oil. The car is stopped and started with diesel; once it's running, the vegetable oil is heated to make it thinner. The driver can then switch fuel systems and the recycled oil is sprayed into the engine in the same way diesel fuel is.
The kit only works on diesel engines because vegetable oil is not flammable enough to work in gasoline engines that are spark-ignited.
Liquid Solar in Ithaca, New York, has contracts with a few local restaurants to collect their used vegetable oil. And in Santa Rosa, California, a group of 50 people have formed a co-op to buy oil in bulk from a local manufacturer and then filter it for their own use.
Although the Environmental Protection Agency has approved vegetable-based biodiesel, which is also gaining in popularity, it hasn't OK'd any recycled oil for sale, said Christine Sansevero, an environmental engineer for EPA.
"You just don't know what's in that oil," she said. "There could be metals, other chemicals that, when burned, could create something you didn't intend to burn. It could also be fine, but it's an unknown."
Biodiesel is a fuel derived from plant oil or animal fat, Sansevero said. It can be used in pure form but it is often blended with regular diesel. The most common form is B20 -- a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel.
Veggie car owners agree that biodiesel is another renewable fuel source, but say it isn't as cost effective or eco-friendly. Pure biodiesel costs about US$1 more per gallon than diesel, Sansevero said. B20 costs about US$0.053 more per liter than diesel, she said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)