I just ordered From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, a book on alternative fuels. I’m about halfway through it right now, and it’s a great read. The first few chapters explain why bio-fuels are so important and why we need to get off our petroleum addiction. Not only is petroleum a non-renewable resource, but the pollution it releases is contributing to global warming, the wars we wage to defend our oil supply are expensive, bloody, and unnecessary, and we’re funneling our money for fuel directly out of the country when we could be re-investing it by using bio-fuels. This book has some great points about bio-fuels that I didn’t realize. The first is that bio-fuels are carbon-neutral: because they come from plants (which can be grown domestically, adding jobs and using fallow fields), the CO2 that these plants use in their lifetimes compensates for the CO2 emissions that occur when bio-fuels are burned. It’s a closed cycle. Emissions of other harmful chemicals are much lower than petroleum-based fuels, as well.

I’ve also found out from reading this book that the original diesel engine was designed to run on vegetable oil! It was designed by Dr. Rudolf Diesel, who first demonstrated the engine using peanut oil. There are many other bio-fuel options available as well; besides bio-diesel and Waste Vegetable Oil, gasoline engines can run on ethanol, which is made from corn. It’s unfortunate that our country is far too invested in the petroleum industry to make a serious shift over to these options. I guess it’ll take one greasecar at a time to start this revolution!

We saw the perfect slogan for a bumper sticker to put on our converted VW: This car is run on bio-fuels: NO WAR REQUIRED!