Green-minded motorists are making car fuel at home, from used cooking oil

The fat of the land
Dec 3rd 2011 | from the print edition

DIESEL engines are famously unfussy about what they burn in their cylinders. Indeed, Rudolf Diesel’s original design ran on powdered coal. But even he might have been taken aback by the recipe concocted by Peter Ferlow. Mr Ferlow, who lives in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of the leaders of a growing band of enthusiasts who brew their own car fuel. His diesel engine runs on oil collected from the kitchen of a local pub. The recipe starts by filtering the breadcrumbs out with a mesh screen. After that you warm the oil up and add sodium hydroxide and methanol.

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