Energy issues meet new solutions

In response, consumers and companies alike are looking for alternative ways to produce and harness energy for various uses.

Diesel engine conversion

Two methods of using vegetable oil to run car engines are gaining momentum. Both involve changing the viscosity of the oil to match that of standard diesel fuel.

A method using straight vegetable oil to run an engine is being marketed in southwest Missouri through Charlie Anderson’s company, Greasel Conversions Inc.

The company, based in Drury – about 60 miles southeast of Springfield – sells kits to convert a diesel engine to run on pure vegetable oil.

“Everybody’s heated a pot of oil on the stove, and when you heat it, it gets nice and runny, and that’s the concept that we’re using,” he said. “We’re taking the waste heat that the engine is already producing, harnessing it with our system and thinning out the oil via heat.”

Anderson started his company five years ago after moving to southwest Missouri from Alaska.

“I’d heard about biodiesel, where they chemically modify the vegetable oil to make fuel, and started researching that,” he said. “I found the concept of straight vegetable oil, where you don’t have to do any chemical modifications, and I took a little bit of knowledge and took the concept so it could be adapted to modern fuel injection engines.”

Greasel’s Web site, www.greasel.com, advocates using vegetable oil from restaurants, but warns that the oil should be transparent or filtered before use.

The movement has several proponents locally.

Springfieldians Chris and Tiffany Frey converted their vehicles to run on pure vegetable oil. They purchased their first kit through Greasel.

“It started out as an environmental thing,” Chris Frey said. “We just wanted to do something different and think a little bit out of the box. We started out looking into biodiesel, but running the straight vegetable oil seemed like a better alternative for us.”

Greasel’s conversion kits cost about $750 for cars and about $2,000 for trucks, not including installation. Anderson said the company has sold 3,000 kits.

Frey, who owns a vegetable-oil-powered school bus in addition to the other vehicles he’s converted, said he doesn’t need to use kits anymore.

“On my first conversion I bought a kit and then on the rest of them I put all the stuff together myself,” Frey said. “It’s all stuff you can get at the hardware store or the auto parts store.”

Biodiesel production

The second method of using vegetable oil involves chemically altering the oil through a process called transesterification. The resulting product, called biodiesel, can run through a standard diesel engine without modification to the engine.

Biodiesel is becoming more popular, with 60 retail locations in Missouri, according to the National Biodiesel Board based in Jefferson City.

The product also has a new celebrity spokesperson. Country singer Willie Nelson has founded a company to market his new biodiesel product, called BioWillie. Nelson is currently in negotiations with Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores, based in Oklahoma City, to carry the fuel at its 169 locations across the country.

The fuel has several advantages to regular diesel, according to the National Biodiesel Board’s Web site, www.nbb.org.

It burns cleaner, producing 67 percent less unburned hydrocarbons and 48 percent less carbon monoxide. It also has to be produced to strict federal standards and is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Other groups are jumping on the biodiesel bandwagon. DaimlerChrysler Corp. announced in November that it is producing a new line of the Jeep Liberty, the Liberty Common Rail Diesel, which will run on B5 – a 5 percent blend of biodiesel.

The company says the new vehicle will have 30 percent better fuel efficiency than the comparable Liberty six-cylinder gasoline engine.

The U.S. Department of Transportation implemented the Clean Fuels Grant Program in 2001, which provides grant money for transit buses to, among other things, utilize biodiesel fuel.

However, the federal government does not recognize pure vegetable oil as an alternative fuel source.

Wind energy

Utility companies are looking at other sources of energy as well.

Empire Electric has signed a 20-year agreement with PPM Energy, based in Portland, Ore., to purchase energy generated at the 150-megawatt Oak River Wind Farm, in Butler County, Kan. Empire spokesperson Amy Bass said the deal will help supplement the district’s energy supply.

“We purchased this in order to add some renewable energy to our portfolio of

generation,” she said. “The cost of the energy from the wind farm will be very comparable to coal when you take into consideration the (federal) production tax credits that are available for renewable energies.”

Bass said the new energy would not have an immediate impact on customer rates. She added that the company currently has a rate case pending with the Missouri Public Service Commission, requesting an increase in retail electric service rates. The new wind energy is not part of that case.