Greaselog - Year 3
Friday, 3. April 2009, 18:46:51
Captain's Log: Stardate 62720.8 (April 3, 2008)
I've been piloting 'Chip' [model French Fried Ford (FFF)-1] for three years now. I have learned much in my time with this Greasy Beast. For one thing, as might be expected, it has an insatiable appetite for grease. Chinese and Mexican restaurant grease seem to be it's favorite- although it'll slurp down any fatty vegetarian extract, as long as it's fairly clean, non-hydrogenated, and free of chunks. I learned that the hard way. At the moment, the 13 gallon per minute grease transfer pump is plugged, substantially slowing down my fueling missions. I was also tricked during hot weather into putting hydrogenated oil into the tank, only to be hampered with multiple, gooey filter changes when it turned cold. The Belching Behemoth doesn't like the cold, and will choke out white smoke in the mornings when below freezing. Using the plug-in block heater helps. A newly added submersible aquarium heater in the WVO tank helps me switch to Enviro-mode earlier, too. Those tricks don't do any good while travelling away from home, though. So, I was rescued once by AAA this past year.
And talk about high maintenance! There's a strange, black film that builds up on the inside of the tank, which then sluffs off and plugs the fuel intake. I cleaned as much of it out by hand twice last year as I could- a very messy endeavor. However, it really softens the hands which is nice. As far as regular old-diesel-vehicle issues- it wasn't as bad as last year. Regular maintenance is twice as high as my old Honda Civic (2 batteries to replace, rather than one, and a 4-gal motor oil capacity). Testing out it's ruggedness during my trip to Mexico in '07 and other rough-road trips cost me nearly $500 in front axle and alignment repairs.
Is it worth it? Let's just say it's not for everybody. For once thing, if I just drove less or carpooled more (there's no public transportation in my town), that would be the most environmentally sound livelihood. But, since I'm a road-trip-aholic, it feels good knowing that 70% of my driving is carbon-neutral. Using ~1,150 gal of waste vegetable oil (WVO) over the 21,239 total miles I drove last year, I calculated that this saved me from using 998 gallons of diesel, which prevented 22,330 pounds of fossil fuel-based CO2 from being emitted and converted to $1,830 in fuel costs savings (only about $900 in savings if you consider the additional costs of filters and the amount of time I put into filtering and gathering waste oil- between 2 to 4 hours per month). For details on my fuel use (lots and lots of them, including carbon emission info for my air travel), see this spreadsheet by clicking here. Or, click here for other blog entries about my fatty wagon. Here's another brief, but good commentary on reducing fuel use by Phil.
I guess you can say it's become a way of life. So, for now:
Onward in the Kung Pow Express!
I've been piloting 'Chip' [model French Fried Ford (FFF)-1] for three years now. I have learned much in my time with this Greasy Beast. For one thing, as might be expected, it has an insatiable appetite for grease. Chinese and Mexican restaurant grease seem to be it's favorite- although it'll slurp down any fatty vegetarian extract, as long as it's fairly clean, non-hydrogenated, and free of chunks. I learned that the hard way. At the moment, the 13 gallon per minute grease transfer pump is plugged, substantially slowing down my fueling missions. I was also tricked during hot weather into putting hydrogenated oil into the tank, only to be hampered with multiple, gooey filter changes when it turned cold. The Belching Behemoth doesn't like the cold, and will choke out white smoke in the mornings when below freezing. Using the plug-in block heater helps. A newly added submersible aquarium heater in the WVO tank helps me switch to Enviro-mode earlier, too. Those tricks don't do any good while travelling away from home, though. So, I was rescued once by AAA this past year. And talk about high maintenance! There's a strange, black film that builds up on the inside of the tank, which then sluffs off and plugs the fuel intake. I cleaned as much of it out by hand twice last year as I could- a very messy endeavor. However, it really softens the hands which is nice. As far as regular old-diesel-vehicle issues- it wasn't as bad as last year. Regular maintenance is twice as high as my old Honda Civic (2 batteries to replace, rather than one, and a 4-gal motor oil capacity). Testing out it's ruggedness during my trip to Mexico in '07 and other rough-road trips cost me nearly $500 in front axle and alignment repairs. Is it worth it? Let's just say it's not for everybody. For once thing, if I just drove less or carpooled more (there's no public transportation in my town), that would be the most environmentally sound livelihood. But, since I'm a road-trip-aholic, it feels good knowing that 70% of my driving is carbon-neutral. Using ~1,150 gal of waste vegetable oil (WVO) over the 21,239 total miles I drove last year, I calculated that this saved me from using 998 gallons of diesel, which prevented 22,330 pounds of fossil fuel-based CO2 from being emitted and converted to $1,830 in fuel costs savings (only about $900 in savings if you consider the additional costs of filters and the amount of time I put into filtering and gathering waste oil- between 2 to 4 hours per month). For details on my fuel use (lots and lots of them, including carbon emission info for my air travel), see this spreadsheet by clicking here. Or, click here for other blog entries about my fatty wagon. Here's another brief, but good commentary on reducing fuel use by Phil.I guess you can say it's become a way of life. So, for now:
Onward in the Kung Pow Express!
However, there was time for some Box-style cranking where the sun was shining down the canyon.
Here's a picture of the "soy-pigs-in-a-blanket" turning golden brown at 325F in the solar oven.
A year later, as I mentioned above, they replaced their two family cars with a Toyote 
The 
Here's their hot water tank and 
Here's Nolan with their 4.1KWHdc-rated 
Here's Owen pointing to the utility meter. The box mounted just above and to the right integrates the solar energy production stats to 
This is an epic mountain that I've been looking forward to for a couple years not because of the technical challenges, but because of the variety of environments it travels through. An 18 mile approach through temperate rainforest and then sub-alpine fir forest is required before reaching the alpine zone and getting access to the Blue Glacier. And besides steep glacier and snow climbing, a final rock pitch (5.4) tops the mountain. We accomplished all this and on our hike-out day, we drove a short distance to 
Willie picked me up at 6am in Shoreline (two days after Phil's wedding) and we drove to the North Cascades for a day trip up the Sahale Arm to the peak. We had a few small mishaps getting to Marblemount, but fortunately the hike and route itself was very straight forward and in a speedy 5hrs 25min we hiked up the 5,000' of elevation gain, climbed the steep snow and glacier field, climbed (roped) the 5.-easy blocks, and were standing on the summit. This was a nice, low-stress day with great views. The 2007-2008 winter was a heavy snow year so there was still plenty of snow on the Sahale glacier to cover the bergshrund and the afternoon snow was soft enough to kick steps without crampons. This allowed us to save weight by taking only an ice axe. We took & used a 60m rope (50m or perhaps a 30m would do) and small rack to climb the summit blocks, although some strong climbing parties solo the ~20m of exposed moves to get to the summit (more confidence inspiring if the rock is dry). Click 
The day following Sahale, Willie & I brunched at the Calico Cupboard (highly recommended) in "quaint" La Conner and then he dropped me off in Burlington where I met Mark, who was coming from his own wedding in Victoria, B.C., two days earlier. We took 2 days to drive to the trailhead. Click 
Based on a tip from Phil, we decided to visit the hip town of Nelson and scrounge for information about climbing Mount Gimli, which 
WIDGETIZE