FRY AND DRIVE: Vegetable Oil Cars

When staff at a Welsh supermarket first noticed dramatic increases in the sale of cooking oil, they thought the
locals were doing a lot of frying. They weren't. They were filling up their cars with it - not surprising, as it's
only 42p a litre. Trouble is, if you don't pay duty, it's illegal. Jim White reports

According to Mike Hebson, the manager of Asda's store in Swansea, south Wales, there was no reason to be
suspicious that sales of the company's cheapest bottles of cooking oil were running 20% higher than the
previous year, way above any other store in Britain. "We just thought it was one of those things," says Hebson.

Why should he and his staff have been remotely questioning, he suggests, if men in overalls and lived-in denims
had started buying Smart Price vegetable oil in batches of six, eight and 12 litres at a time. When one customer
came in and filled a trolley to the brim with plastic containers of the thin, urine-coloured liquid, the checkout
operator barely gave him a second glance.

"Naturally, we assumed they were buying on price," says Hebson, an Asda man to the soles of his own-brand
brogues. There was another reason that his staff were unlikely to see anything untoward in bulk-buying cheap
vegetable oil. "We just thought they were doing a lot of frying," he says. "You have to remember, healthy eating
has not hit Swansea in a big way."

It wasn't until the Department of Transport began a series of trial tests in the city last March that staff realised
something odd had been going on. In an attempt to take diesel vehicles belching out illegal emissions off the
road, department inspectors introduced experimental spot checks on roads in Bristol, Westminster, Glasgow,
Middlesbrough, Canterbury and Swansea. It was in the latter that they found something surprising: a car with a
fuel tank half full of cooking oil.

"The funny thing was," says Hebson, "the driver told them he had been getting it from Asda Swansea for four or
five months, because it was the cheapest around. When we read the report in the local paper we began to put
two and two together."

The enterprising motorist was, so the reports suggested, running his diesel-engine motor on a mix of Asda
cooking oil and standard fuel. At 42p a litre, the supermarket chain's oil is considerably cheaper than the 73p a
litre that even a discounted retailer charges for diesel. The astonishing thing was it worked. Without any need to
modify the engine, the motorist could run his car on the mix with no discernible difference in its performance.
What's more, instead of diesel fumes, the engine gave off a rather pleasing odour - like frying time at the local
chippy.

And if Asda's sales figures were anything to go by, unless he was running a fleet of buses across south Wales,
the driver who had been pulled over by the emissions inspectors wasn't the only one. Wind your windows down
in a Swansea traffic jam last spring, the rumour went, and the chances were you would think someone was
having a barbecue. The local joke was that the whiff was particularly prevalent around the DVLC, the
government's national car-licensing department, which is headquartered in the city. It was a nice irony, because,
as the cooking-oil driver discovered when he was fined £500 and had his car impounded, the government is not
amused by cheap alternative fuel. Diesel is relatively pricey because a large chunk of the cost is made up by
duty. Cooking oil carries no such tax. But if it is put to use in a petrol tank, duty is due.

When, in September, just up the coast from Swansea, in Burry Port, near Llanelli, six more drivers were
discovered apparently running their cars on cooking oil, the news quickly spread. "It was a media feeding
frenzy," says Dai Davies of Dyfed and Powys police, whose officers were involved in the spot checks.
"Everyone came down here, from the local BBC news to the New York Times." Within a couple of days, the
story was in circulation of a crack team of law-enforcement officers swooping on south Wales motorists, of
widespread tax fraud, of a hunt for the Mr Big of the cooking-oil scam.

One report in a Canadian paper talked of round-the-clock stakeouts in the aisles of Asda that netted a couple
buying 100 litres of oil at a time. A witty subeditor coined a nickname for the operation that immediately stuck:
the Frying Squad.

"There wasn't a team as such," says Davies. "It was a multi-agency approach. The police stopped the vehicles
on this occasion but had no power of arrest. We were doing so on behalf of the excise. They were the ones who
could levy the fines. It was a good story, but no, the Frying Squad was all a bit of a media myth really."

But environmentalist John Nicholson was not amused. The jaunty news items about nasally enhanced officers
who could sniff out a tax-evading exhaust pipe at 40 paces had put his campaign to alert the country to the
benefits of biofuels into rapid reverse. He was furious.

The appreciation in Wales that you could cheerfully run your diesel vehicle on cooking oil really began to take
hold during the fuel-price disputes in the autumn of 2000. Fuming farmers and hauliers with the hump parked
their trucks and tractors across the entrance to the oil refinery at Milford Haven, which services much of Wales.

They were protesting against levels of fuel duty that they considered unsustainable, and their blockade was so
successful that, after a couple of days of panic buying, virtually every garage in the principality had run out of
stocks. Nicholson, who lives in a remote part of rural mid-Wales, was typical of those affected.

"We don't have a television, so I'd been unaware that the blockade was happening," he recalls. "I went out to get
some diesel and every garage had run out. My wife's a nurse and needed the car to get to work. I panicked
rather."

Returning home, he looked round for alternative fuels, and tried a bit of central heating oil, which worked, he
says, reasonably well. Then, remembering his schoolboy mechanics, he popped some cooking oil into his
Volvo. "It mixed with the little bit of diesel I had left in the tank," says Nicholson. "Not only did it work, the
vehicle actually behaved better. I never heard my car sound so good, there was a fantastic noise, not a clickety-
click, more of a grunt. And then, of course, there was the smell." He used vegetable oil to tide him over until the
blockade ended. But so happy was he with the performance it gave, that he decided to use it full time, and set up
a website to exchange information on biopower.

He discovered that they have been doing this sort of thing in Germany for years - not simply because it is
cheaper, but because of the environmentally beneficial effects of using sustainable fuels made from rape and
sunflower seeds rather than fossil fuels. Over there it is a sizeable industry, supported by tax breaks; it is no
coincidence that Mercedes and Volkswagen engines are the most cooking-oil tolerant on the market. Indeed
Mercedes motors are so accommodating that they will, apparently, run on lard.

Within a few months, more than 300 drivers had joined Nicholson's web network. But not everyone was thrilled
at the rush to bio. "For some reason, the AA put out the story that using cooking oil will either clog up or blow
up your engine," he says. "Well, which is it? It can't be both. The fact of the matter is, it works brilliantly."

Not far from Llanelli, in Laugharne, home of Dylan Thomas, an engineering student called Chris Dovey joined
Nicholson's biopower network last June. Since then he has been running his Ford van entirely on cooking oil.
Except he doesn't buy it from Asda - he gets it used, from the canteen in Haverfordwest County Hall. He filters
it, adds a drop of white spirit, and hey presto - after a little modification to the blades in his fuel pump - his van
runs like a dream. "Well," he says, "the first ever diesel engine ran off peanut oil, so I'm just following
tradition."
Like Nicholson, however, Dovey is doing something those Asda-buying drivers stopped in Llanelli were not.
He is paying duty. "The canteen was giving me the stuff, only too glad to get rid of it, and I thought: 'I'm on to
something here.' But my mum said to me, 'You get nothing for free in this world, you'd better find out the
implications.' So I contacted the local customs people and they were most helpful."

An excise inspector came to visit Dovey, checked he wasn't refining enough to keep most of Laugharne in
biofuel, and gave him the relevant paperwork. "I get the oil for nothing and pay 26p a litre in duty on it, which
still makes it a lot cheaper than diesel at the pumps," he says, flourishing a form on to which he is obliged to list
every litre of fuel he filters through the modified oil drum in his garage. "But if I went into it as a business I
think the red tape would strangle me."

This, Nicholson says, is a typical experience of anyone trying to run a vehicle on cooking oil. "The government
seems to be making it deliberately difficult," he says. "The most important thing to remember is, it is not illegal
to run your car on cooking oil." As long as duty is paid, that is. And Nicholson reckons that, since duty is paid
retrospectively, even those who were stopped in the south Wales checks were not breaking the law. "I am
driving on fuel on which I have not yet paid the tax. I will do, but I don't need to until it's used. So was anyone
who was stopped given the chance to pay his tax? If not, why not? To stop anybody for using this fuel is
harassment."

He believes that the stories (one paper suggested more than 400 people had been pulled over for using cooking
oil) have done the excise's job for it. There is no need for a Frying Squad; the rumour of its existence is enough.
Indeed, Hebson's stocktaking at Asda's Swansea branch suggests that many previous cooking-oil users have
been put off by the assumption that they could have their vehicle impounded at any moment: saving a few
pence a litre hardly seems worth the risk of a £500 fine. Such is the fear of the mythical Frying Squad that
Nicholson now prints car stickers for those in his network who want to announce their legitimacy.

"Once that first bloke had been done, I think the publicity put a lot of people off," says Hebson. "Almost from
the moment the story appeared in the paper, our sales went back down to the national average."

But there is something appealingly anti-establishment about all this; something subversive about how, largely
on individual initiative, undertaken without flourish or fanfare, it is possible to sidestep the multinationals and
the government and power your car in a natural, clean and efficient way. Today. All you need is a bit of cooking
oil, new or second-hand, and the relevant tax return form, available to download from Nicholson's biopower
website.

"I suppose if I factored in the time I spend filtering the stuff, it wouldn't work out so cheap," says Dovey. "But
there's a little bit of me that says it's worth it just to be getting one over on the big oil companies, really."

Meanwhile, Asda has announced that as of next year, its fleet of delivery vehicles will be converted to run on
fuel made from the waste on cooking oil collected from stores across the country (they fry a million doughnuts
a day nationwide, apparently). Though a spokesman was quick to point out that they didn't get the idea from
their customers in south Wales. Oh, and they will be paying the duty.

"But there is something appealingly anti-establishment about all this; something subversive about how, largely
on individual initiative, undertaken without flourish or fanfare, it is possible to sidestep the multinationals and
the government and power your car in a natural, clean and efficient way. Today. All you need is a bit of
cooking oil, new or second-hand

See Plant Drive

http://plantdrive.com
VEGETABLE OIL Cars and Converting Your Car to VEGETABLE OIL
http://plantdrive.com
http://www.greasecar.com
http://www.vegpoweredsystems.com
http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com
http://www.goodgrease.com
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http://www.elsbett.com
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http://www.frybrid.com
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http://www.theorganicmechanic.org
http://www.fattywagons.com
http://greasebenz.com

http://www.vtvegcar.com

http://www.vegengine.blogspot.com

http://www.greenconversion.net

http://www.alaskavegoil.org

http://www.ehow.com/how_2004136_vegetable-oil-fuel.html

http://www.vegdvw.com

http://www.greendiesel1.com

http://vegwerks.wordpress.com

http://www.vegiecars.com

http://vegetablepowersystems.com

http://danalinscott.netfirms.com

http://www.bebioenergy.com

http://www.instructables.com/id/Biotour.org-Waste-Vegetable-Oil-Conversion-Diesel-/

DVD LIQUID GOLD 2

Learn the Do’s and Don’t's of Gathering and using Waste Vegetable oil as a fuel. Perfect for anyone who is currently
using, or planning on using SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) or Bio Diesel as a fuel!

These questions and more are answered on this DVD:

• The legality of collecting waste vegetable oil and burning it as a fuel.
• Overview of how diesel engines burn waste vegetable oil as fuel.
• How to identify good waste vegetable oil.
• How to identify bad waste vegetable oil.
• How to ask a restaurant for their waste vegetable oil.
• How to fuel up on the fly with the automated One Shot Filtration Unit.
• How to setup your own waste vegetable oil accounts.
• How to collect large quantities of oil for later filtration at home.
• How to filter waste vegetable oil using filter bags.
• How does salt, sugar and animal fats affect waste vegetable oil for fuel?
• How to tell if there’s water in the oil?
• How to filter the oil once it’s been gathered.
• Cold Weather gathering techniques and tips.

http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com

DVD S.V.O. Seminar 2006

Lately there's been a lot of talk about the effects of Global warming due to our love of gas guzzling vehicles and our
dependency on foreign oil. Scientists and entrepreneurs around the world are busy developing what they hope will be
our answer to cleaner burning vehicles. What many people don't realize is that this technology already exists and it's
been around for quite some time now.

This DVD was Shot during a seminar on Straight Vegetable Oil at Ecoversity in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is packed with
2.5 hours of valuable information. Listen along while many of the most frequently asked questions about this technology
are discussed and answered.

These questions and more are answered on this DVD:

• The History of Straight Vegetable Oil

• Different Alternative Fuels
• Straight Vegetable vs. Biodiesel
• Straight Vegetable Oil Facts and Fiction
• Diesel Engines vs. Gasoline Engines
• How a Straight Vegetable Oil System Works
• The Importance of a Vehicles Air Filter
• Increase Power and Economy/Computer Mods
• Oil Gathering 101
• Filtering on the Fly with the One Shot
• Using Filter Bags
• What to do with leftover Nasty Oil
• Diesels Available in the USA

http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com
DVD GREASY RIDER

Picture a cross-country road trip powered by vegetable oil in a 1981 Mercedes-Benz. Greasy Rider follows the two
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as New Orleans and as far north as Seattle, the car is fueled by used cooking grease collected at restaurants along the
way.

Interviews include Morgan Freeman who is opening up a Biodiesel plant in Mississippi. Political analyst Noam Chomsky,
“You're supposed to believe we would have liberated Iraq even if its main product was pickles,” appears along side Yoko
Ono, “This whole world is now ruled by corporations and their greed,” and Tommy Chong, “You guys figured it out. You
got your little bio-car, and there you go.” Additional interviews include the founders of the four major vegetable oil
conversion kit companies, Greasecar, Greasel, Neoteric, and Frybrid, as they discuss the reality of vegetable oil as a fuel.

The heat is felt in this political documentary as America's energy consumption continues to grow. With gas prices on the
rise and the reality of global warming setting in, Greasy Rider points to vegetable oil as one part of the solution to our
energy problems.

http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com

JOURNEY to FOREVER
http://www.journeytoforever.org

The Film:   FUEL

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FUEL is an insightful portrait of America’s addiction to oil and an uplifting testament to the immediacy of new energy
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Tickell and a surprising array of environmentalists, policy makers, and entertainment notables take us through America’s
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Filmed at the National Biodiesel Board Conference and Expo in Palm Springs, CA, this 45 minute video helps qualify the
emissions benefits of biodiesel and illustrates how biodiesel can reduce cancerous diesel emissions.
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DVD:   Biodiesel 101

In this 45-minute presentation, biodiesel author Josh Tickell provides an economic, social and practical context for
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Convert GAS Cars to Plug-In ELECTRIC Autos

http://www.electroauto.com http://www.kta-ev.com http://www.nedra.com http://www.evparts.com
http://www.sourceguides.com/energy
book: Convert It; by Michael Brown and Shari Prange
DVD: Convert It http://www.electroauto.com

`
Convert HYBRID Cars to Plug-In ELECTRIC Autos
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LOCAL Groups Supporting ELECTRIC AUTOmobiles

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TAX CREDITS
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HOME POWER
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SOLAR TODAY
http://solartoday.org

Solar Industry NEWS

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http://www.solarbuzz.com

Solar Industry MAGAZINE

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Recharge your Electric Auto with RENEWABLE ENERGY

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Do not bend over and allow Big Oil to molest your Family, Friends and Community
VOTE SOLAR

VOTE SOLAR
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http://www.seia.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/8723.php
DVD: Uncounted; Director: David Earnhardt
DVD: Hacking Democracy; Director: Simon Ardizzone
book: What Went Wrong In Ohio; by Congressman John Conyers
book: What Happened in Ohio; by Bob Fitrakis

IS YOUR CONGRESSMAN IN BED with BIG OIL?

How much bribes (campaign contributions) did your congressman take from the sleazy OIL Companies?

CAMPAIGN FINANCE INFORMATION CENTER

Where does the money come from?
http://www.campaignfinance.org/states

CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY

stop the Fat Cats from BRIBING your politicians
http://www.publicintegrity.org

POLLUTION and RACISM, INJUSTICE

book: Confronting Environmental Racism; by Robert Bullard
book: Environmental Injustices; by David Camacho
book: Environmentalism and Economic Justice; by Laura Pulido
book: Pollution and the Death of Man; by Francis Schaeffer
book: From the Ground Up, Environmental Racism; by Luke Cole
book: Struggle for Ecological Democracy; by Daniel Faber
book: No Safe Place, Toxic Waste and Community Action; by Phil Brown

FREE eBook on Oil Spills: Not One Drop

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31483843/Not-One-Drop

Big Oil’s Dirty Secrets

http://bigoil101.insanejournal.com