Running Diesel cars on Vegatable Oil?

Regarding sourcing biodiesel in Cork, there's a petrol station in Ballyhay just south of Charleville who sell bioethanol, I'm not sure if they sell biodiesel though.

There's a company outside Bandon called GRO Oil who produce bio-diesel from rapeseed (www.gro-oil.ie). They’ve a capacity of around a million litres p.a. and much of this, if not all of it, is to be sold to Cork City Council, so I'm not sure if it's available to private road users. Either way, GRO Oil haven't succeeded in getting VAT exemption for their product, so for those of you who are looking to source a cheaper alternative to fossil diesel you'll need to look elsewhere. For those who want to be more friendly to the environment might I suggest a bicycle, because bio-diesel just aint environmentally sustainable at the moment.

Just heard on the news that Motor Tax is likely to go up for all engines over 1.6 litre.
Thinking of converting my diesel engine to take vegetable oil.

Would it have any effect on the annual motor tax due ?

I read recently that algae and seaweed is being looked at instead of plant crops to produce biodiesel.

They have a very high oil content, which is what allows them to float in water.

They thrive in polluted waters so can be combined with waste treatment plants and can produce up to 30 times more biofuel per acre than standard crops depending on the species used.


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Wikipedia info...

Algaculture
Main article: Algaculture
From 1978 to 1996, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory experimented with using algae as a biodiesel source in the "Aquatic Species Program".[51] A self-published article by Michael Briggs, at the UNH Biodiesel Group, offers estimates for the realistic replacement of all vehicular fuel with biodiesel by utilizing algae that have a natural oil content greater than 50%, which Briggs suggests can be grown on algae ponds at wastewater treatment plants.[41] This oil-rich algae can then be extracted from the system and processed into biodiesel, with the dried remainder further reprocessed to create ethanol.

The production of algae to harvest oil for biodiesel has not yet been undertaken on a commercial scale, but feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the above yield estimate. In addition to its projected high yield, algaculture — unlike crop-based biofuels — does not entail a decrease in food production, since it requires neither farmland nor fresh water. Some companies[5][6] are pursuing algae bio-reactors for various purposes, including biodiesel production.

On May 11, 2006 the Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation in Marlborough, New Zealand announced that it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel made from algae found in sewage ponds.[27] Unlike previous attempts, the algae was naturally grown in pond discharge from the Marlborough District Council's sewage treatment works."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

But it's very inefficient compared to photovolatic combined with electric cars - just need to invent proper storage batteries

Yes! PV Electric Cars would be the ideal solution, but until then the world will still need oil-fuel.

I believe that a company in South Africa has set up a bio-reactor facility to grow algea at an optimum rate, feeding it whatever nutrients it needs and providing it with sufficient light. From what I can gather, it's far quicker and way more efficient that waiting for farmed crops to grow and convert to bio-diesel.

Even if this method is just used for the short term, ie. 10-20 years, wouldn't it help with a lot of the energy change over problems for a while.
There would be no need to take food crops away from the food markets.
And no need for forests to be burned out to clear land for palm oil crops, etc.

It just sounds like a more sensible approach to producing bio-diesel than what is currently going on.

it works all right but you need to rig your car so that you have something to heat the oil up. oil is thicker than diesel and needs to be thinned out if you want to get it to run properly, heating the oil up makes it thinner (turning in to a gas)