My future mother-in-law, Carol Olson, has been driving Volkswagens—a total of nine—for four decades while raising five children in a Bay Area suburb. For her tenth, she purchased a used 1999 turbo-diesel Jetta last year, but she has yet to take it to the gas station for fuel. One afternoon a week, Carol drives to a restaurant-supply company in her hometown of Lafayette to fill her car's gas tank with canola oil.
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"Each 5-gallon (19-liter) jug of canola oil costs $20, which works out to $4 a gallon. It's more than what I would pay at the gas station, but I get around 32 miles per gallon (13.6 kilometers per liter) for city driving," Carol explains. "And I can relieve some of my guilt about being an American oil glutton." Buying 5-gallon (19-liter) jugs is also an easier, if more expensive, option than purchasing vegetable oil wholesale and storing it herself.
Politics aside, Carol is at the greasier edge of the growing market for environmentally friendly vehicles. Her Jetta required the installation of a diesel-engine conversion kit by a specialist who flew in from Germany. Other "veggie car" owners collect used vegetable oil from restaurants and filter the fuel multiple times before putting it into their converted diesel engines.
Another viable renewable-fuel option is biodiesel, which is produced by removing glycerin from vegetable oils and can be used in diesel engines with little or no engine modification. Retail biodiesel fueling stations are popping up across the country, offering pure biodiesel and biodiesel/petroleum blends. Country singer Willie Nelson has branded his own biodiesel, called BioWillie, which can be found at Carl's Corner Truckstop outside of Dallas. His company is currently in negotiations with a travel-stop company to distribute the fuel at more than 150 locations nationwide.
Out of all alternative fuels, the most popular combination, gasoline and electricity, has become the basis of the exploding market of hybrid vehicles. This year promises seven new hybrid car models, including Ford's hybrid SUV, with almost a dozen more soon to follow. My soon-to-be retired parents have caught the hybrid fever and now tool around among the pickups and SUVs on the Houston highways in a Toyota Prius. And with gas topping $2 per gallon (3.8 liters) this year, they feel even more vindicated in their vehicular choice.
For Carol, the 5-gallon (19-liter) jugs of canola oil are too heavy for her to hoist up to her gas tank, so she happily siphons smaller batches into a gardening can, from which she fills her gas tank just like she waters her roses. In Carol's kitchen, you're likely to find one of the canola jugs upside down over a bowl. She uses the residue of her car fuel for salad dressing.
"What's good for the heart is good for the cart," she says with a smile.
