Depending on who you ask, the future of car fuel is going to be either hydrogen, electric, or biodiesel. Each technology has its pros and cons (and when you're talking about lowering our dependency on petroleum-based fuels, the pros always outweigh the cons), but from a strictly DIY point-of-view, biodiesel takes the cake.
For those of you who might not know,
biodiesel is a fuel made primarily from biological sources - it's "biodegradable, non-toxic, and typically produces about 60% less net carbon dioxide emissions than petroleum-based diesel." The best thing about biodiesel, however, is its accessibility and DIY-ability. If you have a car with a diesel engine, you can easily whip up a batch of biodiesel in your backyard, and be driving down the highway on a french-fry-scented cloud of
eco-friendliness in no time.
Our friends over at
Autoblog have a
great article about a new "do it yourself biodiesel machine that will turn your fry grease into fuel for just pennies a gallon!"
Etruk is currently only selling these units in the UK, where making home-brewed biodiesel is perfectly legal, but I'm sure you could persuade them to ship one across the big pond... for the right price. The units range in size from a 40 liter distiller called the
Etruk 50 (£895 = $1,821) up to the
Etruk 200 (£2,095 = $4,265), which can hold up to 150 liters of sweet, sweet biodiesel goodness.
If you don't have the dough to buy one of
Etruk's distillers, you can still roll your own biodiesel with little more than a jug of vegetable oil, lye drain cleaner, gas line antifreeze, and an assortment of glass containers and tubes. Here's
a great tutorial to get you started.
Who knows what the future holds for our fuel-starved society. Will every garage in America have a biodiesel distiller in the next 10 years? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it's a step in the right direction, and one that every DIY-er with a diesel engine should try out.
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