Why run cars on plant oil as an alternative fuel to Diesel?
Mineral oil is a resource which is diminishing. It takes millions of years to create it and its harvesting has some dire political and economical consequences. Plant oil can be renewed within one growing season and can be derived from multiple sources including algae that can be grown with limited land use. Plant oils like Canola oil are often called vegetable oil. They are quite readily available as new or used resource. Plant oils are also sometimes byproducts in food or animal feed production. When you use waste vegetable oil (WVO) you are recycling by converting a waste product into new energy. Diesel engines, which are generally 30-40% more efficient than comparable gasoline engines, can use different plant oils as fuel as long as they have the right viscosity (are liquid enough). By the way here is an interesting quoted from an inventor, someone – as it turns out – with a vision, Rudolph Diesel (1912): “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but
