From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank: The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as an Alternative Fuel Review

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(More customer reviews)First, the criticism. If you are looking for a serious and authoritative discussion of the science of global warming and the economics of petrochemicals and biofuels, this is NOT it. Tickell parrots the standard arguments of the average New York Times reader: disastrous global warming is a foregone conclusion, oil is going to run out abruptly any day now, etc. No economist worth his salt believes that we are going to run of oil ever, much less wake up one morning and find - Gasp! - it all ran out last night. Scientists who actually study global warming (as opposed to activists who "study" press reports) know that predicted temperature rises and collateral effects tend to be exaggerated by an alarmist press and entertainment industry. Tickell offers no indication that he is even aware of legitimate counterarguments.

To illustrate the author's poor economic analysis, he makes two assertions about sources of biodiesel. One is used vegetable oil from fast food restaurants. It may be cheap or even free now, but if everyone follows his advice, used vegetable oil will be in short supply and they will probably start charging for it.It is simply not going to be the case that everyone in the post-petrochemical future will be able to run their cars with "free" waste oil.He also asserts that all the oil we need could easily be grown on fallow fields. Although it is true, as he charges, that many fields are fallow because the gov't pays farmers NOT to grow, it is not true that all of them are. I have a friend who thinks that the Soil Conservation program is useful because farmers don't understand crop rotation and are too dumb to be trusted with "our" land - how are we going to convince people like him that we should scrap that program because biofuel farmers will make efficient use of those resources? Some bio-cheerleaders (I can't remember if Tickell takes this line or not) claim that a large scale shift to biofuels won't affect food prices, but that is almost certainly wrong. The amount of land required to make a dent into our petro-fuel usage would easily require both the fallow fields and some land currently used for food production. Demand up, price up, QED. He also complains (rightly) about the corporate welfare inherent in such farm programs without pointing out that some of the programs he applauds, like ethanol from corn, were championed by the Senator from Archer Daniels Midland, Bob Dole. It's doubtful that you could convince farmers to give up their farm programs just because of a new crop application. What are the odds that canola growers won't support biofuel subsidization?

Those 15 or so pages are a minor problem with a book of over 125 pages of meaty "How To" information. He has real experience with biofuel conversion, and so has plenty to say about using straight vegetable oil (SVO) and converting SVO to biodiesel in your garage. I suspect that he included the first chapter material because there is a certain amount of echo chamber feedback built in to the likely target audience for this book. That is, a small portion of people who will look for this information may be "techno geeks", but the majority will be "tree huggers". They tend to be mutually exclusive groups: surprisingly, something like 80% of the Early Adapters of hybrids were people who identified themselves as conservatives. On the other end of the spectrum, Ned Lud (as in "luddite") is an EarthFirst! icon, and many recycling, anti-consumer-culture, low impact, "tree huggers" tend to attack the technology required to apply the information in this book (you have to have containers, usually made of steel or plastic, and you have to use electricity to mix and heat NaOH and racing fuel). Since the majority of the target audience for this book will be tree huggers, Tickell will be preaching to the converted, but it isn't clear that the converted will be willing to swallow their pride and principles long enough to apply his lessons.They are also such a small minority in the world that they won't make a big impact in the global picture; Tickell would do better to suppress his urge to preach nonsense to the choir and try proselytizing the majority who remain unconverted.

[Disclosure: I am a tree-hugging techno-geek, so I enjoy this kind of thing.I'd like to have taken the ill-informed California tree-hugger with the license plate NODIESL out to the woodshed.]

Why diesel instead of hybrid, the current darling of the press and the politician, especially on this side of the Atlantic?One problem with hybrids is that their apparent performance improvement is more hype than breakthrough.The fact that there is an electric engine in them has little to do with the increase in efficiency, while the smaller size, improved aerodynamics, narrow tires, and low power are making up most of the apparent improvement. The only improvement afforded by the electrical system is the recovery of kinetic and potential energy during braking and downhill travel. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot get more energy out of them then you put in, and the amount put in is still governed by the efficiency of conversion of chemical to heat to motion energy by a gas engine.

The turbo diesel is another animal altogether. Yes, it still converts chemical into kinetic energy, but it does so much more efficiently than the gasoline engine. There is a reason that diesels and not gassers are used in industrial applications. Not only do they run more efficiently, but they are less complex, lower maintenance, and produce higher torque than equivalent sized gassers.

Diesels account for 60% of new car sales in Europe, compared to about 1% in the US, and this impacts the choices available to Americans. European drivers tend to be middle-upper and upper class because of the high costs of licensure, fuel, insurance, and regulatory compliance (you almost never see old clunkers on the road in Euroland - why not?). The automobile industry takes into account that they can afford high performance vehicles but that they don't necessarily want to throw money away. As a result, European manufacturers make diesel vehicles that sip fuel, perform and handle well, have comfortable interiors, and generally leave the hybrids in the dust. Don't take my word for it: go try a turbodiesel VW Golf TDI (50 mpg), a Toyota Prius (45 mpg), and a Honda Civic HX (40-45 mpg).

With that said, another advantage of the diesel engine is the fact that it can be run on fuel made from plants, hence the interest to me of this book. The University of Idaho website contains studies that show that the break-even price for biodiesel was about $1.90 at the time of printing. That's about $0.17 cheaper than diesel costs here & now, so I am in the process of acquiring my own "brewing" equipiment. Even a fuel with 20% biodiesel (B20) is known to increase engine life because the superior lubricity of the biodiesel is good for the injectors (though biodiesel is bad for the rubber found in older engines, easily remedied with new high tech plastics - sorry, tree-huggers!).In addition to the private benefits of having a vehicle that is cheaper to operate, the fact that you can use biodiesel instead of dino-diesel means significant reductions in SO2 and CO2, so you can feel good about driving it and saving money for yourself all while jilting oil companies and terrorist-supporting royals out of of few pence.

The "brewing" information in this book can be found on the internet, but I think it is handy to have a one-stop reference like this. Not only does he list parts, ingredients, and recipes, so that you can build your own processor, but he also lists suppliers, support organizations, and other handy contacts.There are sections on troubleshooting and success stories.If you are a techno geek, skip Chapter 1 and go straight to the good stuff (unless you want a good laugh).If you are a tree hugger, please recognize that Chapter 1 is for entertainment purposes only.You should realize that this type of aggressively individualistic innovation could never occur in the planned economy so many of you seem to prefer.Read Hayek and Julian Simon (available here on Amazon).Then, go indulge a consumerist urge and buy a fancy new Mercedes TDI and start brewing your own fuel while we wait for Big Soy to overtake Big Oil!

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Product Description:
From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank is the first and only book that details all aspects of running diesel engines on vegetable oil. Includes information on biodiesel, the diesel fuel substitute made from new or used vegetable as well as information on running any diesel engine on straight vegetable oil (SVO). This book is packed with history, information, instructions, photos, diagrams and resources. If you want to stop supporting Mid-East Petroleum oil, you must get this book.