Biodiesel on board
It’s not a political statement.
Mark Fiedler, a staunch Republican and supporter of President George W. Bush, wants to make that much clear.
But the oil industry’s gargantuan profits really get his goat.
“Like the Enron people, they (oil company CEO’s) should be put in jail for what they’re doing to the American economy,” says Fiedler, 39, of the Mehlville area in south St. Louis County.
There’s not much any one of us can do to change gasoline prices or America’s collective consumption of it. But Fiedler has found a way to decrease his own dependence on foreign oil: by home-brewing and using biodiesel to fuel his truck. And he’s not alone.
Fiedler is one of about 75 members of the St. Louis Biodiesel Club intent on saving money, improving air quality and recycling restaurant cooking oil that otherwise would need to be disposed of. Oh, and his tailpipe permeates the air with the delicious scent of french fries.
Fiedler became a member of the group and started home-brewing biodiesel after seeing actress/environmentalist Daryl Hannah, a proponent of the biodiesel movement, on cable TV’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Now, he fills the two fuel tanks on his Ford F250 pickup (a conversion kit supplied the extra tank) with cooking oil from local restaurants and biodiesel that he also creates with used cooking oil.
Terri Zeman of Brentwood has also reconfigured a series of recycled tanks and plastic drums into a biodiesel production line near her walk-out basement.
Zeman, who ran for St. Louis County Executive in 2002 on the Green Party ticket and is a leading member of the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, uses recycled cooking oil from Novak’s Foxhole Lounge and other local eateries. She learned of homebrew biodiesel through NORML, which proposes making biodiesel from hemp oil rather than cooking oil. She keeps mason jars of various colored oils to demonstrate their viability as fuel.
David Smith, a St. Louis artist who creates art from recycled metal scraps, goes a step further by heating his studio and running his 1982 Volkwagen Vanagon on biodiesel. He’s mostly motivated by environmental concerns, but enjoys saving about $1,300 a year in gasoline costs.
“I love driving my old beat-up truck past the gas station,” he says.
Of course, putting home-brewed biodiesel in a brand-new diesel car could gunk up any warranties on the vehicle’s engine.
There’s something slightly clandestine about the St. Louis Biodiesel Club. One of its most active members wanted no part of being interviewed for this story. And then Fiedler, Smith and Zeman politely declined to divulge the name of their organization, even though it took all of 15 seconds to find it on the Internet. Because they don’t pay the fuel taxes the rest of us are charged at the pump, they’re skittish.
There aren’t any solid statistics on how many people use either biodiesel or a combination of biodiesel and vegetable oil to fuel their passenger vehicles. But a search of the Internet reveals hundreds of biodiesel recipes, dozens of grassroots biodiesel groups nationwide and multitudes of businesses, schools and government agencies that use biodiesel, some of it mass-produced from soy beans, some of it brewed from oil used in cafeteria deep fryers.
Greasel connection
Charlie Anderson is owner of Greasel.com, a company in the southwest Missouri town of Drury that makes and sells conversion kits that enable diesel engines to burn both biodiesel and pure cooking oil. He recommends using oil from smaller, independently owned restaurants than from chains. He explains that the oil from a small place is usually better, and that dealing with an independent restaurant offers a better chance of talking with someone who can grant permission.
“Chinese and Japanese restaurants seem to be the best, but there are always exceptions to the rule,” Anderson says. “When you look into the container it should look dark, and liquid. If you see it is white and creamy, walk away. Clarity of the oil is more important than color.”
Anderson offers the advice to those using straight vegetable oil in diesel engines that have been converted with one of his kits. But it’s good advice for those changing vegetable into biodiesel, too.
He sells T-shirts that ask for oil in several different languages for those occasions when Greasel and biodiesel folks come upon a restaurant owner who doesn’t speak English.
No permits, yet
Until recently, Fiedler’s biodiesel production line sat beneath a carport in his Mehlville area driveway, much to the distress of a neighbor. Before setting up the contraption, Fiedler says he called numerous federal agencies to get necessary guidelines and to find out whether he needed any permits. He says they told him he didn’t.
Nevertheless, the neighbor turned Fiedler’s name over to a St. Louis County preservation officer, who came, inspected it and told Fiedler that he needed a bunch of permits and licenses or he’d be fined.
“That was three weeks ago, so I don’t think he was able to find anything to get me on,” said Fiedler, noting that his other neighbors cheer him on. He has since moved his production facility to his dad’s transmission shop on Gravois Avenue in St. Louis.
Sometimes, Zeman points out, people unfamiliar with home-brewed biodiesel get uneasy when they see one of the jerry-rigged labs go up in a neighbor’s yard or driveway. That uneasiness can turn to panic when people hear the word “methanol,” an ingredient often used to make methamphetamines.
But they usually breathe easy once she explains it to them. Contrary to popular belief, Zeman says, biodiesel is not highly flammable. Its flashpoint is 325 degrees. She and Fiedler take several gallons of biodiesel along on long trips to refill their tanks.
The one thing friends and family members of Fiedler, Smith and Zeman fear most about joining them on those junkets is that their biodiesel vehicles don’t stop at gasoline stations where there are restrooms.
Stations on wheels
Fiedler, Smith and the others say they would like nothing better than to pull up to a gas station pump and buy biodiesel made from soybeans.
“I’d rather put the American farmer to work than send my money to Russia, Algeria or Malaysia,” says Fieldler.
But finding smaller quantities of the fuel locally is nearly impossible.
Steve Daues, sales manager of The Kiesel Company in St. Louis, says his oil-supply firm gets calls all the time from people looking to buy biodiesel for their passenger vehicles. He has to turn them away because Kiesel sells it only in quantities so large that an individual couldn’t possibly store it all.
Daues says that a few gas stations and truck stops in outlying rural areas have biodiesel pumps, but there are none in the immediate vicinity.
“I’m always curious why they want to do it because it typically costs more than diesel,” he says. “Really, the only people in Missouri motivated to do it are state and federal agencies who get tax and air-emission credits.”
Daues wasn’t taking into account the low cost of ingredients needed to make home-brewed biodiesel.
Zeman recently drove to and from Colorado in her 21-year-old VW station wagon, using less than 36 gallons of her home-brewed biodiesel that cost her less than 50 cents a gallon - or $18 total - to concoct.