Home Fried Fuel

Home Fried Fuel
by Katie Scaief

The fast-food aroma of greasy burgers and fries lingers in Bruce Barbour's garage. Inside, vats of used restaurant grease fill the shelves, awaiting Barbour's attention. Three giant plastic tubs stacked on top of each other line one wall from the floor to the ceiling. Tubes and funnels weave them together. This is not a burger joint. It is not a mad scientist's laboratory. This is where Barbour makes fuel for his cars.

"I do it for the joy of making my own fuel, filling my tank, waving at the gas stations," Barbour said, chuckling as he ran his fingers across his beard. "We call them milk stations now."

The power of petroleum moves nearly all Interstate 5's traffic. With current power struggles revolving around the world's oil reserves and concerns about how carbon dioxide emissions are affecting the world's climate, some citizens are taking action by producing a purified form of cooking oil, known as biodiesel, for their vehicles. While current biodiesel production cannot match the country's thirst for petroleum, producers hope it might lead to a shift in the United States’ dependence on petroleum-based fuels.

Barbour began making his own biodiesel in 1999 when a gasoline pipeline ruptured and exploded in Whatcom Creek, Bellingham, and killed three boys. One was a friend of Barbour's son.

At the time, Barbour was working as an environmental scientist for the Washington State Department of Ecology. His work included studying Whatcom Creek for factors that would make salmon survival difficult, such as metals, pesticides and toxins, in an effort to eliminate them. The explosion disrupted habitat in the waterway and Barbour said he found himself negotiating a long-term restoration plan with Equillon, the company that managed Olympic Pipeline Co.

"One day," Barbour said, "after a particularly frustrating round of negotiations, I went to a gas station and filled the tank on my Honda wagon. The smell of the gasoline brought tears to my eyes as I realized how hypocritical it was for me to support the system that led to this tragedy."

"I stopped driving cars. That didn't work long; I have kids."

For the next three months, Barbour tinkered in his garage, trying to find an efficient way to purify used vegetable oil, he said. Now the garage is his laboratory, his toy.

"I'm in here all the time," Barbour said, after he dragged a few living room chairs into the middle of the garage. Unfinished wood walls enclosed the room. Pitchers of yellowish-brown muck sat on a work bench.

Barbour works about one hour every two weeks to produce 25 gallons of biodiesel: enough to fuel his Suburban, Datsun pickup, Mercedes and one boat, he said.

Barbour said he spends about 45 cents for every gallon he produces. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, purchasing pure biodiesel can cost anywhere from $1.95 to $3 per gallon.

Barbour picks up used vegetable oil from local restaurants.

"It is a relatively simple process and can easily be made in a Coke bottle," Barbour said.

He said the process of purifying the oil, called cracking, is not complicated. He learned in less than three months with recipes posted on the Internet by activist groups and research universities.

Michael Seal founded the Vehicle Research Institute at Western Washington University in 1972. Since then, his team of students and engineers have designed award-winning vehicles with power sources ranging from propane to solar. A number of the VRI's hybrids, vehicles that are powered by a combination of fuel and electricity  use biodiesel fuel.
When carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, Seal said, it traps the earth's heat and can cause global temperatures to rise.

Petroleum diesel releases three tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for every ton burnt, according to the British Association for Bio Fuels and Oils. Burning biodiesel also releases carbon dioxide, but the overall lifecycle emissions from production to burning  are 78 percent lower than the overall carbon dioxide emissions from petroleum diesel, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Biodiesel is made from cooking oil, which initially comes from plants, said Wayne Elson, an environmental protection specialist for the EPA. Unlike petroleum diesel, which releases carbon removed from the atmosphere millions of years ago, the carbon released from burning biodiesel comes from plants that removed the carbon from the atmosphere while growing. This means that the carbon dioxide released when biodiesel is burned is offset by the carbon dioxide uptake during plant growth; burning biodiesel effectively "recycles" carbon dioxide.

In Washington state, more than 75 percent of anthropogenic (human caused) carbon dioxide emissions come from petroleum use, primarily for transportation, according to the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.

In King County, vehicles traveled an estimated 5,266,660 miles on interstate highways in 2002, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation. An average passenger car emits 0.916 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile, according to the EPA's Average Emissions Estimates. Using these numbers, traffic in King County could produce more than four million pounds of carbon dioxide in one year.

The production and use of pure biodiesel compared to petroleum diesel can reduce carbon monoxide emissions by 48 percent, particulate matter by 47 percent, total unburned hydrocarbons by 67 percent, and sulfate by 100 percent, according to a report by the National Biodiesel Board. The same report found that emissions of nitrogen oxides might increase by 10 percent. Jenna Higgins, information coordinator for the National Biodiesel Board, explained why nitrogen oxides emissions increase.

"The best scientific evidence has to do with the way biodiesel combusts," Higgins said. "Biodiesel combusts more completely then petroleum diesel. That changes the timing of combustion within the engine, which can change nitrogen oxides emissions."

Higgins stressed that the new cleaner diesel technology mandated by the EPA for 2007 will drastically reduce biodiesel nitrogen dioxide emissions.

An advantage of biodiesel fuel, Elson said, is that individuals can make it on a small scale in their homes and use it to power Diesel engines without modifications.

"Any Diesel engine will run on biodiesel," Seal said, "but there isn't enough. There isn't going to be enough."

Seal said using restaurant waste to fuel cars is a wonderful way to dispose of it. But to fuel all of America's cars on biodiesel, he said, would involve growing crops in order to make enough oil; this would consume energy and increase the price of biodiesel.

"It somehow seems wrong to be burning fuel (from crops) when even in America there are people who are hungry," Seal said.

But right now, Barbour said, biodiesel isn'f fueling as many cars as possible. Restaurants currently pay a waste disposal fee just to get rid of their used oil.

"It's not a question of whether there is enough," Barbour said. "It's a question of using what we have."
Barbour said more than six gallons of waste vegetable oil are produced annually per capita in the United States. If this oil
were converted to biodiesel it would make five and a half gallons of fuel per person. Barbour estimates the Seattle area produces enough waste vegetable oil to satisfy the fuel needs of 40,000 families.

"We have to shift our priorities," Barbour said. "The petroleum industry has a stranglehold on fuel flow."
Although Seal doesn't share Barbour's enthusiasm for biodiesel, he said the United States needs to learn how to function without dependence on foreign oil.

"There is a strong resistance in the White House to alternative fuel," Seal said. "They see a God-given mandate to control the world's oil."

Seal said he fears that as the world’s population grows, and car dependence increases, the United States will find itself in competition with countries like China and India for oil control.

"We know we will run out," Seal said. "We just don't know when."
For the time being, Seal said Americans should focus on consuming less when it comes to gas.

"We don't really need a sport utility to go to the grocery store to pick up milk," he said.

Some countries and organizations are adopting programs that discourage heavy consumption of petroleum fuel. Austria began using biodiesel fuel in trucks, tractors and boats in 1988. Bellingham's waste disposal company, Sanitary Service Company, has been using a mix of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel in two trucks for about a year, said Rodd Pemble of SSC, Inc.

"As far as advantages," Pemble said, "the drivers have mainly noted the reduced air pollution: less soot. SSC has been willing to pay more for biodiesel in this pilot program because we believe it's important to support pollution prevention for the benefit of the community."

Barbour said the process of making biodiesel is so easy and inexpensive that individuals can make it on a small scale.

"Producing your own fuel is a powerful experience," Barbour said. "Making fuel locally empowers everyone except the large oil companies. My wife and I have not been to a gas station in four years. That is, except to buy milk."

Though it is unrealistic to think the United States might be able to satisfy its energy needs with biodiesel, Barbour said, the fuel can be used as a transitional resource.

"Make it, use it, talk about it," Barbour said. "I believe in the power of the individual to affect his or her community and that community to affect the region, and if it really works, ultimately the rest of the world."