Frequently Asked Questions about:

Jay Mankita and the 'Veggie Voyager'

 

Who is Jay Mankita and why is he coming to our town?

I am a musician, educator, and activist who writes and performs songs and stories for children and adults on themes such as ecology, healthy food, and sustainable living. I drive a van powered by recycled vegetable oil, called the 'Veggie Voyager'. I sing my songs, and demonstrate my van, teaching about alternative energy, and what folks can do to help make a better world.

 

What kind of van is the Veggie Voyager?

It is a Dodge Sprinter Van, with a Mercedes 5 cylinder engine. The front is aerodynamically designed to cut down on wind resistance. Vans like this one typically get between 22 and 27 mpg, which is fairly high for vehicles of this size.

 

Did you buy the van ready to run on vegetable oil?

No. I bought the van, and had it converted by a mechanic who specializes in veggie oil conversions.

 

How does the Veggie Voyager run on vegetable oil?

The Veggie Voyager uses 'SVO' (straight vegetable oil) - more specifically, 'WVO' (waste vegetable oil), recycled from restaurants, and then cleaned, by filtering out the food particles. No other processing is required. Theoretically, I can go to a restaurant, pick up their waste oil, run it through a few filters, and then pour it right into my veggie oil tank. I actually have two tanks. The first tank is the one that came with the van. In that tank, I can put regular diesel fuel, or bio-diesel. My second tank is more interesting. I put clean, recycled veggie oil into it. Coiled at the bottom of this tank, like a snake, is a copper coil filled with engine coolant (just like radiator fluid). That's the stuff that swirls around the engine keeping it cool, by drawing away the heat and dispersing it. I start up my engine on regular diesel fuel, or bio-diesel. I drive for about 10 or 15 minutes. During this time, the engine is heating up, the engine coolant is heating up, and that copper coil is heating up. This heats up the veggie oil. When it's hot enough (about 180 degrees), I flip a switch on my dashboard. The diesel tank pump shuts off, while the veggie oil tank turns on. Vegetable oil starts flowing to the engine, and now I'm driving on SVO! I can drive like that for as long as I like (or until my veggie tank starts getting too low), and then when I'm ready to stop driving for a while, I run diesel fuel backward through the system for about 10 seconds to clean all the veggie oil out of the engine and fuel lines. Then I drive on regular diesel or bio-diesel for five minutes, and I can safely shut down.

 

What about carbon?

Carbon dioxide is one of several 'greenhouse gases' - gases that contribute to global warming by trapping heat inside the Earth's atmosphere, much like a glass greenhouse traps heat to help grow plants. When we burn fossil fuels, we are releasing carbon that was stored in the Earth over a period of millions of years. Since the start of the industrial revolution, a couple of hundred years ago, we humans have put much more carbon into the atmosphere than it can handle in that time. On the other hand, plants need carbon to grow. They take the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere that they put back in. Just like fossil fuels, the difference being that instead of overloading today's atmosphere with the carbon from millions of years ago, we are supporting a cycle that takes place over just a couple of years.

 

Does burning vegetable oil cause pollution?

Yes, but a lot less then petroleum oil. Only about 10 percent of the carcinogens (chemicals that can cause cancer), and none of the the sulfur. And because the plants that the oil came from drew the carbon out of the atmosphere recently in order to grow, it's considered 'carbon neutral', when the carbon returns to the atmosphere.

 

Where does vegetable oil come from?

Vegetable oil comes from all sorts of plants. from soybeans to sawgrass. The Veggie Voyager only uses recycled edible vegetable oil - oil that's already been used by a kitchen or a restaurant. All the food particles are filtered out, and the oil is ready to be burned in the diesel engine.

 

Why doesn't everyone drive on veggie oil?

Driving diesel vehicles on vegetable oil is only one small part of the very big spectrum of alternative energy. If everyone used fuel from plants, or biofuels, and drove the same inefficient vehicles, we might run out of land to grow our food! That's why I only use oil that's already been used once for food. Because biofuels are a way for some big companies to make a lot of money, rainforests are already being cut down to make land available for growing plants for fuel. This leads to other questions, such as; how do you know that you're doing the best thing for the environment? There are no easy answers, but as we develop out ability to think critically, we can find our way.

 

Does the Veggie Voyager use bio-diesel fuel?

I sometimes use bio-diesel fuel in my engine. Any diesel vehicle can. Bio-diesel is made from either new or recycled vegetable oil. The glycerin (the stuff that makes vegetable oil so thick) is removed, and alcohol is added (20% of the total mixture). This makes the vegetable oil more combustible, so it can run a regular diesel engine. As long as the outside temperature is above 40 degrees, bio-diesel works very well. Below that temperature, it starts to gel up. No vehicle modifications are required to run bio-diesel fuel, but it will not work in a gasoline engine, only in a diesel. The Veggie Voyager has a modified fuel heating and delivery system. Most of the time, I use appx 1 part regular diesel, to 4 parts straight veggie oil (SVO).

 

Where does petroleum (fossil fuel) oil come from?

Over hundreds of millions of years, tiny life-forms such as plankton and algae algae, fell to the bottom of the sea floor, and were compressed over time into petroleum. A similar process took place over land. There are even some dinosaur bodies which have become petroleum, although these would only comprise a very small fraction of the bio-mass which became petroleum - in other words, oil, natural gas, and coal. Petroleum is used today in many ways - diesel fuel and gasoline for instance, or plastics, chemicals, cosmetics, and many other things.

 

Can you drive the Veggie Voyager in the wintertime?

Yes. Even in very cold weather, as long as the veggie oil heats up in the tank, it works fine. And since I clean all the veggie oil out through the back-flush process, there is no veggie oil left in the lines - only in the tank - so gelling is not a problem. It does take longer to heat up on very cold days - sometimes up to twice as long.

 

How big is the veggie oil tank, and how far can you go without filling up?

The tank is 44 gallons. At 22-23 mpg, I can go almost 1000 miles.

 

What kind of fuel did the first diesel engine use?

The first diesel engine ran on vegetable oil, specifically, peanut oil. Diesel fuel from petroleum hadn't even been invented yet!

 

Who invented the Diesel engine?

Rudolph Von Diesel invented the Diesel engine in the late 1890s. He first showed it to the public at the World's Fair in the year 1900. Everybody was impressed, because the diesel engine was more powerful, more reliable, and more efficient than the gasoline engines of the time. The powerful oil barons knew that people wouldn't have to buy their petroleum oil if they could power this engine by vegetable oil they could grow themselves, so they bought the engine, and didn't release it to the market until they'd found a way to process petroleum into a fuel that would run a diesel engine: diesel fuel.

 

Can a regular gasoline engine car run on vegetable oil?

No. Gasoline engines use a spark plug to create a spark. Each spark ignites a tiny amount of gasoline in the fuel chamber, creating very small explosions which run the engine. Neither diesel fuel, nor vegetable oil will combust under those circumstances - it is not as flammable as gasoline. It will however, combust under great pressure - which is how a diesel engine works. The oil is squeezed at a very high compression, in order to create the same kind of mini-explosions.

 

How fast can the Veggie Voyager go?

As fast as any 'normal' van, but I prefer to drive at or below the speed limit. The faster I drive, the less efficient the engine, and the more fuel I use. So I drive slowly, and enjoy the scenery.

 

Does it smell like french fries?

Not really. It does however, have a strong smell of cooking vegetable oil, like when you heat up oil to pop popcorn, before you put the popcorn in. The oil has been filtered down to half a micron - this dot (.) is about 200 microns - so there's not really any food left in the oil, when I put it in my tank.