Fry Fry Revolution

This hilarious and heartening/disheartening story from the Guardian is old, but very amusing. Apparently, when diesel prices went up in Swansea, Wales a few years ago, drivers started filling their diesel tanks up with vegetable oil at 42 pencer per litre, as opposed to 73p per litre for diesel. Apparently, they skipped the whole biodiesel creation step, which involves mixing in a bit of methanol and sodium hydroxide, from what I understand, and just poured the stuff straight into the tank. They were going to the local supermarket and loading their carts full of the stuff in litre bottles, and the supermarket management simply put it down to the Welsh love for fried goods.

"It mixed with the little bit of diesel I had left in the tank," says Nicholson. "Not only did it work, the vehicle actually behaved better. I never heard my car sound so good, there was a fantastic noise, not a clickety-click, more of a grunt. And then, of course, there was the smell." He used vegetable oil to tide him over until the blockade ended. But so happy was he with the performance it gave, that he decided to use it full time, and set up a website to exchange information on biopower.

The disheartening part of the story is, as soon as the Department of Motor Vehiecles got wind of this practice, they swooped down with heavy fines for tax evasion for the budding biodiesel culture of Swansea.

I've long planned to make my next car a diesel and run it on waste vegetable oil. If nothing else, it'll give me a good excuse to fry, not that restaurants don't give the stuff away for free.