- Most diesel engines can be converted to run on vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is thicker than diesel fuel, so it is more difficult to atomize during engine injection. You can easily buy a conversion kit that will increase the size of your engine's injector nozzles, a second fuel tank and an additional heater to keep the vegetable oil more thin. The second tank is required if you want to also continue to burn diesel in the car or truck.
- Once converted, unused vegetable oil can make an excellent fuel. However, new oil is often more expensive than diesel fuel, thus it makes little financial sense to use new vegetable oil as a fuel.
- Some people have set up a filtration system to process used vegetable oil into biodiesel. Although commercial filtration systems are available, it is also possible to make your own oil filtration system. Once filtered, used vegetable oil makes an excellent fuel for your car or truck.
- Because it is naturally thicker than diesel fuel, vegetable oil, or biodiesel, needs to be pre-heated to ensure that it flows properly to the engine's injectors. If you live in cold climates, you will likely have to use a fuel tank heater to ensure that the vegetable oil stays in a proper liquid form suitable for use in an engine.
- Although biodiesel offers an interesting alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel, using new vegetable oil as a fuel has an unintended side effect. Because vegetable oil is produced from edible products, the Global Economic Symposium cites the problem of increasing food prices as ethanol and biodiesel manufacturing start to compete in the market place for limited supplies of base food products.
- A vegetable oil-powered car produces far fewer emissions, according to a 2001 report by HGCI, UOS, Ford Motor Company and Harvard University. Biodiesel emits 70 percent less carbon dioxide than diesel fuel, has 55 percent less particulate emissions, emits 55 percent fewer volatile organic compounds and 45 percent less carbon monoxide. It does, however, emit 5 percent more nitrous oxide than traditional diesel powered vehicles.
