Craig Reece converts diesel engines to run on Straight Vegetable Oil and helps clients find restaurants to provide the recycled fuel. Photo by Andrew W. Schmidt
December 2006
Wisdom on Wheels
Early adopters of alternative fuel give Bay Area a breath of fresh air
By Emily Dulcan
Along with rising demand for a war- and carbon-free way to drive, living in the most expensive place for gasoline in the continental 48 is spurring a new wave of Bay Area motorists to green their ride.
The most conspicuous of this growing sub-culture are the hybrid drivers. Toyota Prius has become the cultural standard for hybrid vehicles, which combine electric and gas motors, and enthusiastic San Franciscans even organize “Prius Meets” to check out each other’s new cars and amenities. But there are more fuel-efficient hybrids on the market than the Prius, and other, lower profile and less expensive cars on the road that are reducing or eliminating the demand for the likes of Chevron — cars that run on biodiesel, for example, and on its cool cousin, Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO). There are also compact, high-mileage conventional cars that put most cars on the road to shame.
Wayne Cunningham, senior editor for Car Tech at SF-based CNet, says the majority of industry experts believe that fuel-cell vehicles and electric cars will become the standard in a few decades. Until then, if you’ve been toying with the idea of crossing to the sustainable side of the freeway, it’s not hard to follow in the tire tracks of some pioneering Bay Area residents.
Drive cleaner now
Hybrids: A Stylish Alternative
Hybrids are most efficient during stop-and-go city driving, when their electric motors kick in and replace gasoline injections, but they don’t make much difference for freeway driving. The Honda Insight, unveiled in 1999, is the first mass-produced hybrid in the U.S. It gets about 62 mpg — almost 20 mpg better than the Prius. Both the Insight and the Prius cost about $20,000. Honda also sells hybrid versions of their popular Civic and Accord models for between $5,000 and $10,000 more than the all-gas versions.
Lexus, Toyota and Ford make hybrid SUVs, which improve their mpg from the lousy SUV standard to something akin to that of a mid-sized gas guzzlers. The Ford Escape Hybrid, priced at $26,970, gets about 28 mpg and the $33,000 Toyota Highlander Hybrid gets 22 mpg, according to actual drivers who tally their mileage on evworld.com, a website dedicated to information about alternatives to petroleum vehicles.
No matter what model of hybrid you buy, driving solo in the carpool lane isn’t the only perk that comes with ownership: there are tax credits too (visit fueleconomy.gov).
But for those who don’t want to invest in a brand new vehicle, another option is biofuels: biodiesel, Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) or ethanol.
Biodiesel: A Macho Alternative
As a contractor, Bill Crolius drives a hefty vehicle that he used to run with regular diesel fuel. “When I was stopped at red lights, my exhaust was going into people’s faces, and I was really embarrassed,” he says. Crolius also didn’t like that his gas money was going to major oil companies and oppressive regimes in the Middle East. With the help of a growing community of concerned San Franciscans, he switched to biodiesel. “When I realized I wasn’t going to the gas stations anymore, I was quite thrilled,” he says.
Last year, David Dias, an automotive technology instructor at San Francisco City College was approached by a student who wanted to introduce biodiesel to his classmates but first needed to address its image: Alternative energy vehicles weren’t macho enough for many car aficionados. So students searched for the most offensive gas-guzzler they could find — a 1954 El Camino — to convert to diesel (and hence, biodiesel), and the Biodiesel Club was born. Dias had worked with alternative fuels before, but the inception of the club helped him view alternative energy in a new light. “I kind of see it as a marriage … of green and hotrod,” he says. Club members are still working on the El Camino, and Dias hopes they can find the money to finish the black paint job and fluorescent green details with an image of flaming corn kernels.
It looks like petroleum, but biodiesel is made from vegetable oil, animal fat or waste grease from restaurants and will run in almost any diesel engine, no conversion necessary. And Crolius is right. His emissions with biodiesel are much better. Use of pure biodiesel (B100) reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 75 percent over petroleum diesel. However, at filling stations biodiesel is often blended with petroleum diesel, so 20 percent biodiesel (B20) reduces C02 emissions by 15 percent. Biodiesel also spews less particulate matter, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. One problem is an increase in nitrogen oxide emission, which contributes to smog. Biodiesel isn’t cheap, either. Bay Area prices run between $3.50 and $4 per gallon at the handful of retailers, while the average price for diesel in the Bay Area at press time was $2.84. Another modest biodiesel drawback is slightly lower fuel economy. Drivers of B100 go about 90 percent of the distance they’d go on regular diesel, 98 percent when they use B20.
Berkeley’s Biofuel Oasis, a mainstay for biodiesel fill-ups and bulk purchases, has grown astronomically, from about 50 customers upon opening in December 2003, to more than 1,600 registered customers — without advertising. Gretchen Zimmermann, one of six worker-owners of the Oasis, says biodiesel is practical and fosters cooperation. “The most sustainable way to do biodiesel is in small communities,” says Zimmermann, who knows of numerous neighborhood cooperatives whose members make their own biodiesel through simple chemistry. The Oasis buys fuel from a plant in Coachella, Calif., that uses waste soy oil from a potato chip factory. It’s important to use recycled oil, Zimmerman says, because virgin oil might come from genetically modified plants or from corporations destroying rainforests in nations such as Brazil and Malaysia to farm soybeans for the biodiesel market. She says using recycled oil will stunt the demand for brand-new vegetable oil that in part fosters the destruction.
Straight Vegetable Oil: A Purist’s Alternative
SVO is a less popular form of biodiesel and requires more of a commitment, but driving a car that runs solely on vegetable oil has at least one definite appeal: no more gas stations. Instead, when the needle hits “E,” it’s a scramble to stake out the finest local Chinese buffet or tempura restaurant (Japanese chefs apparently replace cooking oil often, yielding the highest-grade fuel). Luckily, restaurant owners are usually thrilled to bypass paying for oil disposal and happily leave jugs of used oil out back for their SVO partners. SVO users must then filter and batch-test the oil for high acidity before use.
Concerns about breathing polluted air, the environment and gas prices prompted Ruben Salvatierra, 18, to purchase a 1983 Mercedes for $800 that had already been partially outfitted with an SVO conversion kit. Since run-down, old diesel cars are relatively cheap, he soon bought another Benz and, with vegetable oil from a neighborhood Chinese buffet, uses his cars to extol the virtues of low-emissions fuels online and to friends.
“Most friends don’t believe it until I go into detail about how it works,” says Salvatierra, who can quickly launch into a discussion of oil viscosities and why the U.S. should look to Germany for models of fuel efficiency. He even has a Myspace page named “Veggie-Benz,” dedicated to promoting the joys of SVO and featuring his two Mercedes.
The SVO Conversion
At the Biofuel Oasis, Craig Reece converts between two and eight diesel engines to SVO burners every month. The job costs between $1,900 and $6,000, depending on modifications and custom features. Reece says the frequency of conversion requests he gets is directly linked with the price of gas. “My customers tend to be cheap,” he says, and, depending on how much they drive, they can quickly make up the cost of conversion. Occasionally Reece heads to Costco to buy jugs of soy or corn oil. The looks on people’s faces as he dumps vegetable oil into his car in the parking lot is almost worth the price of conversion, he says.
SVO is not a government-approved fuel in the United States and therefore is not tested for purity and emissions quality.
Ethanol: Hardly An Alternative
In the Bay Area the availability of ethanol, which can reduce emissions by 14 to 19 percent, is almost non-existent right now; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the only E85 filling station within a 100-mile radius and sells only to private fleet vehicles. Fueling the debate on the fuel are critics who say that ethanol constitutes a subsidy to American agribusiness and that “ethanol” could be produced more efficiently by converting plants such as switch grass, which is easier to grow than corn.
“Anti-Hummers”: The Non-Alternative Alternative
If you aren’t quite prepared to commit fancy new vehicles or difficult-to-find fuels but are determined to be kinder to the planet, there are numerous fuel-efficient options. For small, light vehicles consider the 2006 models of the Saturn Ion ($13,890), Ford Focus ($14,000), Kia Spectra ($13,465) and MINI Cooper ($18,000). All get about 30 mpg, and filling their tanks costs less than $30. They all land closer to the green end of the government’s greenhouse gas emission rating.
Headed for the future
Every major car company makes a model that runs on fuel cells, which generate electricity by breaking down hydrogen molecules. Water vapor is the sole tailpipe emission. But safety issues and cost hurdles will keep them off the market for a number of years. Pure electric vehicles are also part of the future. Meanwhile, engineers today are resuscitating affordable electric cars by beefing up the battery power in hybrids. The nonprofit California Cars Initiative, also known as CalCars, has built prototype plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PEHVs). In October, Al Gore rolled up to a Proposition 87 rally in Berkeley in a plug-in hybrid emblazoned with a large decal that proclaimed, “100+ mpg.”
“It feels great”
Many alternative fuel and hybrid drivers know that their vehicles won’t completely spare the planet from global warming — the way fuel cell and electric vehicles some day might — but they also know that their efforts help drag sustainability kicking and screaming into the mainstream.
Sienna Wildwind, a member of the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective and an auto broker who locates affordable diesel cars for buyers, believes a definitive change is on the way. “One motto of our organization is ‘Biodiesel: Driving Still Sucks.’ But biodiesel is something we can do now, and it feels great.”
Emily Dulcan is a freelance writer in San Francisco.
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