Used cooking oil turned into bus fuel / LJWorld.com

Archive for Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Maryland students plan to run environmentally-frie

By Fern Shen - The Washington Post

May 31, 2005

SANDY SPRING, Md., friends school students went to a local restaurant to stock up on a yellow-orange fluid they all agreed looked nasty. Moyra Scauffler, 11, above, thought its color was like mango juice.

Usually, when these kids go to the California Tortilla restaurant in Olney, Md., it's to get some burritos or chips and salsa.

But this month the four Sandy Spring (Md.) Friends School students were behind the restaurant, stocking up on a yellow-orange fluid they all agreed looked nasty.

It was waste oil, the stuff used to fry those chips. At the end of the week it is disposed of in a big, blue metal drum, next to the trash. Supervised by an adult, the kids stuck a plastic hose into the grimy container, drew out the goo and ran it through a filter.

"Eeeew," said Ariel Johnson, 12, as the filtered oil blopped into a white plastic drum. Moyra Schauffler, 11, thought its color was like mango juice. "Actually it looks like urine," said Maxwell Goodman, 8.

But it smelled pleasant - like corn chips - which is good because that odor might come out of the tailpipe of one of their school buses.

The kids were collecting the oil, supervised by Maxwell's father, Dan Goodman, because the school plans to run one bus entirely on fuel made from waste oil. Sandy Spring already has been running its fleet of 15 yellow buses, since March, on a fuel made partly from soybean oil.

Greasy stuff for kids

Sandy Spring (Md.) - Friends School students next year plan to turn veggie oil into bus fuel. They will be supervised by adults and will use lots of safety precautions - some of these chemicals are powerful and dangerous.

Step 1. Collect waste oil from local restaurants and run it through a filter, to strain out bits of food and other particles.

Step 2. Mix it with methanol (a kind of alcohol) and lye (sodium hydroxide, often used as a drain cleaner). Let sit overnight.

Step 3. What's left is biodiesel and glycerin, a material that sinks to the bottom. (Glycerin also can be used to make soap.)

Step 4. Make changes to the bus' diesel engine to that it can run on just vegetable oil.

Step 5. Put the veggie oil in the bus.

Fryer oil from restaurants and soy oil can be used to fuel diesel engines, the kind of engines on most buses and trucks and some cars. This fuel is called biodiesel and it's cleaner and better for the environment than diesel fuel made the usual way, from crude oil (petroleum) that comes from underground.

Besides, what would you rather sniff coming out of a bus tailpipe: soot or french fries?

The Sandy Spring Friends students, and people around the world, are exploring new kinds of fuel, as worries grow about the air pollution and other problems associated with petroleum-based fuel.

President Bush, whose energy package includes support for biodiesel development, last week visited a Virginia plant that makes fuel from soy oil.

Chicago public schools and more than 100 other school districts nationwide have switched to biodiesel-fueled buses. Arlington County, Va., government and the federal Agricultural Research Service Center in Beltsville, Md., have been using biodiesel in vehicles for years. In 1999, an estimated 500,000 gallons of biodiesel were produced. In 2003, about 30 million gallons were made.

WASTE OIL From the restaurant flyers is disposed in a metal drum. The Sandy Spring, Md., Friends School students stuck a plastic hose into the grimy container, drew out the goo and ran it through a filter.

Jennifer Johnson, Ariel's 11-year-old sister, said she already has noticed something about the exhaust from the school's "soy-powered" buses: "It doesn't smell as much." The buses run on a blend of 20 percent soy oil and 80 percent petroleum-based diesel fuel.

For the school, the switch to biodiesel has meant paying 10-20 cents more per gallon, "but it's worth it to us because of the statement it makes about how much we care about the environment," said school spokeswoman Anne Ball.

As for the kids, even their greasy project didn't change how they felt about California Tortilla. After collecting 55 gallons of gunk, they headed into the restaurant for some chips.

Pros and cons of biofuel

It's cleaner. There are air pollutants in regular diesel - including soot and carbon monoxide - that cause breathing problems, including asthma attacks. Biodiesel pollutes less and produces less carbon dioxide, which is believed to contribute to global warming. It also breaks down quickly, so if it spilled, it would be less harmful to the environment.
It helps kids breathe easier. Since kids spend a lot of time in school buses breathing diesel fumes, making bus exhaust less harmful really helps them.
It's renewable. Biodiesel comes from plants, so we won't run out of it. Regular diesel comes from crude oil, a fossil fuel that we will eventually use up.
It can be made in the United States. Soybeans, the main source of biodiesel, can be grown here. But most of the world's petroleum (about 97 percent) is found in other countries.

Problems of biodiesel

Most people don't drive diesel. In 2003, just 4.6 percent of the 216 million registered cars, vans, buses and trucks in the United States were diesel-powered. Some gas stations have begun selling biodiesel, but it's still hard to find.
It costs more. Fuel made with 20 percent biodiesel (B-20) is about 20 cents per gallon more expensive than petroleum diesel.
It doesn't work well at low temperatures. That's why biodiesel usually is mixed with petroleum diesel.

What will the school get from its 55 gallons of California Tortilla oil?

Since the buses get about 10 miles per gallon, the school will get 550 miles - which is about how far one bus travels in 2 1/2 weeks. The restaurant also made out: It usually costs about $16 to have a container of oil that size hauled away.