Semicolin's Blog

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!

You gotta rant once in a while. It's been a while. Two very unrelated topics, but one solution: Lighten up folks!

Rant 1: Driver ticketed for using biofuel.
Rant 2: D.C. Judge Wants $65 Million for Lost Pants

Read more...

Winter hit the southwest unexpectedly quick and hard (well, hard for here at least). And I realize now that I should've prepared by stocking up on veggie oil.

I just returned from Zion National Park and my first bigwall climb. Attempts to collect grease in Socorro were foiled by empty barrels. So, I left Socorro with enough oil to almost get to Flagstaff. After spending a night in recently snowed-over Flag, we found a Chinese restaurant with decent quality oil, but collecting was almost foiled again by the highly viscous gunk that the cold oil formed and my pump wouldn't suck. I got around this by scooping it into a 5 gallon tub & pouring it into the dirty tank - doing this 10 times filled the dirty side of my Greasel Nomad tank. This fill-up tooks us to Zion and half-way back to Albuquerque on the return trip.

With my hands greased-up and oil stains soaking through my over-shirt onto my "clean" cloths, I asked myself, "Is this worth it?"

We travelled approximately 1,300 miles and used one tank of petrol-diesel. This works out to about 37 miles per petrol-diesel gallon (1,300 miles/35 gallons). Far below my 107mpg average on my summer roadtrip. We must've combusted a little over 50 gallons of veggie oil. Economically, my Honda coulda gotten 38-40 miles per gallon and unleaded is currently about 18% cheaper than diesel (makes no sense to me since diesel's a cruder, less processed form of petroleum as far as I understand). So, no winner there. BUT, we would've been hard pressed to fit 2 people with camping & aid climbing gear in the Hawaii 5-O Honda. Also, 50 gallons of veggie oil burned was 50 gallons worth of fossil carbon not entering the air along with the associated lower emissions of veggie oil (see roadtrip link above for info).

While just staying home would be the best answer (zero emissions, zero gallons of oil to collect), I know I'd get fidgety and start to twitch when I think about snow in the mountains. So, as long as I can keep up oil collection through the winter at this level, the answer to my own question is still a loud "YES." We'll see what winter has in store for me & Chip.

While on my 2006 road trip, I visited the Springers in the small but QUALITY town Council, ID. Their daughter Misty works for the Adams County Record. She was duly impressed by Chip, the French Fried Ford, and wrote an article which made the front page! Personally, I think think this was the most exciting thing to hit their front page since the first printing in 1908. wink. smile.

The pic came out real dark, but it's me pouring veggie oil from a 5-gal. cubbie into the tank in the back of my truck.

Thanks, Misty!

Finally've had time to update the dotphoto site. Winter has finally come and skiing takes up most of my free time. WooHoo! Problem has been, though, to find snow its a DRIVE. Mostly been weekend warrioring up in CO. Also bought ice tools in the Fall of '05, so have been testing them out. New photo albums are of a Thanksgiving winter ski ascent/descent of Mt. Quandary, a couple ice climbing trips, a backcountry ski trip to a hut near Aspen (slideshow), and some miscellaneous pics from this Winter including my new Veggie-oil powered truck! Click on the links above for photo albums and slideshows. Enjoy!
(photo of Willie by Karla).

2007-05-30 Update:
Added a Video!