A blue bug goes green

One local restaurant owner's vehicle is proof that what's bad for your health might be great for your car -- as well as your pocketbook and the environment.\nRon Stanhouse, owner of the Crazy Horse, 214 W. Kirkwood Ave., has been selling fried foods for nearly half his life. While the restaurant's greasy foods might not be beneficial to customers' waistlines, they are great for his blue 1999 Volkswagen Beetle.\nStanhouse recently purchased the diesel-run vehicle on eBay, only to have it adapted to run on cleaner-burning waste vegetable oil, in addition to regular diesel. It was driven in last month's IU Homecoming parade.\nStanhouse became aware of the doubly useful combination of having a car and recycling his leftover fryer grease as fuel after reading about vegetable oil fuel conversion kits in the media -- spurred by the recent increased gas prices.\n"It seemed like a good idea and the timing's perfect," Stanhouse said. "But I'm just a car guy; always have been. That is, a car guy with a restaurant, with easily 20 gallons of waste oil each week, who thought, 'Hey, I could do that, that's easy.'"\nHe is not alone. Because of high demand for conversion kits, the only difficulty he had in making the switch to grease was placing his order. According to MSNBC, there are approximately 5,000-plus vehicles on U.S. roads today that run on the biofuel.\nThe idea of using vegeable oil is far from new. In 1900, Rudolf Diesel himself demonstrated his signature engine that ran specifically on peanut oil -- foreseeing sustainable green energy and the development of the agriculture in countries using it. After his death in 1913, the diesel engine was re-engineered to run on fuel derived from petroleum, which historically has been the cheapest and most easily obtained fuel.\nDiesel prices are now running between 80 cents to $1 more than gas prices. However, Stanhouse remains unphased, as his fuel comes straight from his own personal filling station. The restaurant's deep fryers, which produce grease to customers, serve up what amounts to "liquid gold" for Stanhouse — his main reason for making the jump to "grease up" with vegetable oil.\n"I figured I already had access to all the fuel; the hard part was covered," Stanhouse said. "On diesel the 'Bio Bug' gets about 40 mpg, and I joke it gets 20 chicken wings to the gallon, but I don't really care -- it's free."\nIn less than two months the Beetle, or "Bio Bug," has nearly 500 miles on it and Stanhouse has only good things to say about the investment.\n"It really makes me smile to know that I've completed the project," Stanhouse said. "To see it done and see it work -- it's not just like every other car you see up and down the highway."\nAfter spending a couple months to find a suitable vehicle and to have it converted, Stanhouse paid nearly $1,000 for a conversion kit and that much more again to have local mechanics install it inside the Beetle's spare tire well.\nThe Bug still depends on regular diesel to get started so the vegetable oil has time to heat for a few minutes, liquefying it so it doesn't clog. The switch is then made from diesel to veggie oil.\nHowever, there was also a learning curve. The switch, which is in the center dashboard area, is so close to the stick it's easy to accidentally tap into the wrong mode.\nStanhouse isn't sure whether there will be any kind of side effects to using his vegetable oil-powered car, such as its start ability in the winter season, but so far so good. It turns out he's saving money at a time of high gas prices and is helping the environment, too.\nIn general, vegetable oil is a renewable resource, said Philip Stevens, an associate professor in the Chemistry Department and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He explained that the carbon in the fuel doesn't come from coal, but from plant matter, which comes from the atmosphere. The result is that burning vegetable oil doesn't add any net carbon dioxide.\n"Nonetheless, whether it's better for the environment depends on how the ethanol in the vegetable oil is produced," said Stevens. "The net benefits may not be as great as you think because of the fossil fuels used in its production. But if you have a process (like Stanhouse's) that recycles used vegetable oil, of course that's better for the environment than producing vegetable oil strictly for automobiles. Right now, energy efficiency is key."\nWill running your car on vegetable oil be the next "big thing?" Stevens said he doesn't know.\n"It'll depend on the relative cost of gasoline for regular cars versus diesel, whether you can convince people to switch," Stevens said, "And gas is currently a lot cheaper of the two, which is interesting."\nStanhouse's "experiment in fun" is a nice environmental gesture, but he added that he doesn't think cooking oil will eventually help solve the United States' energy crisis.\n"I think biofuels will be a realistic, permanent part of the energy policy in this country in the future," he said. "Farm towns are tripping over themselves for ethanol -- one step towards cellulose, (another possible biofuel alternative), and that's where I think the future points"