A car designed to run on bio diesel, or even straight vegitable oil (SVO)will run just fine on fossil derived diesel fuel. There is no problem finding stations that sell such. Not every station in urban areas does, but enough do. As you move to more rural areas, the percentage of stations selling it actually increases. If a small town has only one station, it is VERY likely that it will have a diesel pump.
The point of bio diesel is EXACTLY that cars, trucks, etc already exist that ARE designed to use it. Right minded people already bought them. Biodiesel “conversion” consists of unscrewing the gas cap and pouring biodiesel into the tank.
Burning straight vegitable oil, DOES require some modifications, but these modifications do not in any way prevent use of “regular” diesel…in fact a small supply of “regular” (or bio) diesel is normally used to start and warm up SVO powered vehicles.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to burn vegetable oils in mass amounts to power a electrical plant and then use the electricity to power electric cars?
Someone brought up the lack of a bio-diesel infastructure. It’s true–it wouldn’t be cost-effective to build this infrastructure from the ground up. But we already have a exstensive electrical transmission infastructure.
biomass-fired electric plant could burn other forms of bio-waste too.
Power plants don’t have to start and stop all the time like cars do so they use fuel (and this goes for fossile fuels too) more efficiently than car engines. IOW, one BIG engine that runs 24/7 is far more efficient than 1000 little engines that start and stop all the time.
The solution, IMO, is using many different sources (fry-oil, garbage, wind, sun, nuclear, coal, natural gas, oil) to generate electricity and then use the existing and extensive electrical transmission grid to move this power cheaply to places almost anywhere in the USA (certainly electicity is available in many more places than fry oil, or for that matter, gasoline, is available).
A big power station IS more efficient than a small automotive engine. The whole picture would include transmission losses, and battery effiency losses.
The veg oil is more expensive than coal, and much more expensive than Plutonium and hydroelectric. These are the current fuels of choice for inexpensive electrical power generation.
So in addition to the factors that make electric cars impractical (as demonstrated by failed attempts to market such) now, you’d have to add higher electricity prices. Those factors are:
-Batteries. Current Batteries are: (pick at least three, depending on technology)
-Heavy
-Full of toxic elements and chemicals
-Short lived.
-expensive.
-inefficient.
-low capacity.
-Short range (result of battery issues above, but a problem in it’s own right)
-Long “fueling” time. Once batteries are depleted, they need several hours to charge.
-Lack of infrastructure to support “charge while you park” concepts.
-Significant power required for heat and AC. Heat is “free” with an IC engine, and it needs to idle when stopped anyway, so running the AC isn’t a problem. AC in in electric means you have to keep the engine spinning at stop lights, which kills your range.
These are the killer issues for electric cars. YES, I have ignored all the good points of electrics. Those advantages have not surmounted the list above in the marketplace.
It would seem that the agencies best placed to exploit waste cooking oil as fuel would be those industries producing said waste - manufacturers of packaged fried snacks could use it to fuel their distribution; Even fast food chains could do this.
Sure- and certainly a few dudes could (and a very few already do) use waste cooking oil. But there ain’t enough to put a significant dent in how much fossil fuels we use. Of course, a few more dudes could certainly convert and every little bit helps. I I owned a eatery that used a lot of oil, I’d consider getting a used deisel van and converting it to use the oil.
Google terms such as Pyrolosis, a waste to fuel method utilizing pressure, heat, and a catalyst to create useable fuel from such abundant wastes as used motor oil, used automatic transmission fluid, used tires, plastic, even chicken guts.