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Paul Maher in front of the 3-tank plant that keeps his wheels in motion.

The hunt for alternative truck fuels is on and right now, there are transporters out there who run there rigs using a blend of plant oil and conventional diesel. The plant oil is called biodiesel and it's the closest thing the trucking industry has right now to a viable substitute for petrocarbon diesel. The beauty is, you can make it yourself, writes Paul Collings.

Country music legend, Willie Nelson makes it and makes dollars doing it too. He manufactures biodiesel from vegetable oil and sells it to gas stations around the USA. And he's not the only one. South Africa has several pioneers in this field and local lorries are already realizing savings by using biodiesel. 

Darryl Melrose is one such man. "Biodiesel can be used alone or mixed in any ratio with petroleum diesel fuel, when it is burned, CO2 is released into the atmosphere which is then recycled and absorbed by growing plants which can later be processed into fuel. It produces 80% less carbon dioxide, 100% less sulphur dioxide (major component of acid rain) and up to 75% less exhaust smoke emissions. The flash point of biodiesel is ± 150°C as opposed to petroleum diesel at ± 70°C. It degrades about 4 times faster after spillage and provides significant lubricity improvement over petroleum diesel fuel," he states on his website, www.biodieselsa.co.za.

Melrose says he sells his biodiesel as a 20% blend with regular diesel for 10 cents less than the average diesel price. What's more, he hasn't had any complaints about vehicle performance or engine damage. "In fact," he says, "my clients tell me their consumption has improved and their trucks run quieter."

This is made all the more believable when one learns that the inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel, used biodiesel made from peanut oil in his original engine over 100 years ago. 

Refine your own
Imagine never having to drive into a diesel station ever again. This needn't be a pipe dream if local biodiesel evangelist Paul Maher of NanoElf BioDiesel has anything to do with it. Apart from designing, building and marketing compact biodiesel production plants, he brews hundreds of litres every month for personal use. "My wife has a 2004 diesel car which we run on 100% biodiesel. It's still under warranty and the service technicians haven't picked up any faults with the fuel system after 18 months use of biodiesel."

Maher sells his home-based biodiesel plants in kit form from R7000 to fully assembled plants at R22 000. "It is possible to make 1000 litres a day with this entry-level plant," says Maher, who has 40 clients to date, each of which has received hands-on training and telephonic support in their quest for the ultimate biodiesel.

Maher sources his raw material, used cooking oil (sunflower) from several restaurants in his neighbourhood. "I pay R2 per litre and then add methanol or ethanol and potassium hydroxide to remove the glycerine from the oil. If I sold my biodiesel at market prices I'd make a 33% profit. Right now I'm happy to save R2 on every litre our car uses."

If you're technically minded and want to brew your own, get more information at http://biodiesel.nanoelf.co.za 
 

Diesel lab - It doesn't take up much space at all and it doesn't smell bad, this little refinery.

The NanoElf BioDiesel plant has three tanks -the black tank holds the used cooking oil, which then passes into the silver geyser where it is heated to 60degrees Celsius to remove the glycerine from where it passes into the white wash tank. It takes about 3 hours to make 133 litres of biodiesel in this set-up.