College Times

Media Credit: Ryan Ruiz

        David Conz’s hobby has certainly brought its memorable moments.

There was the time his van smelled like French fries for weeks after he spilled a five-gallon container of used vegetable oil in it. Or the run-in with state inspectors – who at first simply couldn’t believe and then, legally, couldn’t permit a vehicle that ran as cleanly as his.

Chalk it up to the cost of being on the cutting edge.

Conz, the assistant research professor for the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University, takes old vehicles and converts them to run on used vegetable oil – the bubbling, greasy gunk used to make countless baskets of French fries, onion rings and mozzarella sticks at restaurants across the Phoenix metro.

Of his hobby, Conz says: “It’s taking a waste product and turning it into a resource and it’s something that pretty much anybody can do.”

The process to convert both the cars and the grease into gas is fairly simple, said Conz, whose formal chemistry training ended at the high school level. The internet is full of forums and information on how to do so.

While the movement to turn used grease into gas is not exploding, it’s certainly expanding. Officials in Gilbert have already proposed creating a free permitting program for home biofuel converters like Conz, primarily so firefighters can keep track of where such activity is taking place. Tempe firefighters have reportedly also explored some measures.

But for those who create biodiesel fuel and the vehicles that burn them, both as a cost-savings and environmental measure, numerous problems loom in the distance. Many biodiesel enthusiasts fear that government regulation – far beyond the relatively tame permitting process in Gilbert – lies just over the horizon.

And then there are the concerns about just what happens if too many people get interested in biofuel and biofuel vehicles. In that scenario, some watchdog and industry groups say, the negative environmental effects could outweigh the positives.

‘The Coolest Thing’

Conz, a Tempe resident who lists a 1966 Yamaha motorcycle, a Jetta and a 1982 Chevy passenger van among his converted vehicles, first learned about the biofuel brewing process in June 2002.

“Back then gas was only a $1 a gallon but it just seemed like the coolest thing I’d ever heard of. I grew up watching MacGyver,” Conz said. “Back then, I could make it for about 60 cents a gallon. Cost savings wasn’t really a motivating factor for me.

The beneficial environmental effects, however, were.

“The emissions are dramatically reduced, it’s biodegradable, it’s non-toxic and it’s compatible with the current infrastructure so all the cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, ambulances, fire trucks – they can all use it.”

In theory that should make biofuels a no-brainer for the American public as the nation seeks to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.

But as Jon Findley, the energy committee chair for the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club puts it: “Biofuels should be desirable since the photosynthetic process takes carbon out of the atmosphere and using the fuel as a source of energy would only put that same carbon back into the atmosphere … The process is supposed to be ‘carbon neutral.’

“Unfortunately, this is generally not true in the real world today. In any modern large scale power production process, energy (usually from fossil fuels) is expended to grow, cultivate, harvest, store/transport, process and deal with waste products of the biofuels.

“At best, then, biofuels are useful only as a small-scale, local or regional solution.”

Local vs. National

Findley hits on a key distinction. In this country right now, there are two separate biofuel movements taking place.

The first, smaller one, involves people like Conz – the local or regional biofuel creators who take used product (the fryer oil) and reuse it to power their vehicles.

The second – and this is the movement that those like Findley are concerned about – is the large scale national movement to convert raw biological materials like corn and soy into biofuels.

Growing soy or corn and using it to create fuel requires huge amounts of land and fresh water, of which the world is already facing increasing shortages. Converting the crops to ethanol uses energy.

Some of those in the food industry, however, say large scale biofuel production is being unfairly and inaccurately attacked.

In fact, said Larry Mitchell of the American Corn Growers Association, the impact of biofuels in many cases is beneficial to the agricultural industry and the public.

Much of the fuel being made now has been from soy crops derivatives. In this case, the soy is used for food and the oil – typically an unwanted byproduct – is used as an alternative fuel ingredient.

“That’s not to say that we are not moving towards other dedicated crops for oil that will make a lot more sense for everybody,”Mitchell says. In the Midwest, for example, corn has been grown for fuel purposes.

But others believe that food yielding crops should be used not for fuel and instead used to feed people. Rising grocery costs this summer heightened that concern. Mitchell, however, points out that food costs have actually dropped dramatically since.

“The cost of corn and soybeans both have been cut well in half since July. If you check the profits of the large grocery manufacturers you will find they are making an outstanding profit right now,” Mitchell says. “We are actually raising an adequate amount of food in most cases.

“Distribution of that food in most cases is what’s lacking.”

Clear Benefits

Indeed, few people question the benefits of what homebrewers like Conz are doing. Without home biofuel brewers, most of the used oil would be poured into dumpsters to be picked up by a rendering company or simply disposed of.

But even people like Conz wonder what would happen if hundreds or even thousands more people took an interest in homebrewing. In that case, brewers would have to purchase virgin oil.

Conz acknowledges the issues: “It works on the small local scale for individuals and small groups and co-ops but to try to force it into the large multinational petroleum model wouldn’t work.”

Currently, homebrewers make arrangements with restaurants to pick up their used fryer oil. Biodiesel can be made out of new or used vegetable oil or even animal fat.

 “It’s important to set up legitimate relationships with restaurants. If you just go take it out of the dumpster, you’re actually stealing it from the rendering company and that’s not good,” Conz explains. “A lot of people do that. There have been a lot of stories in the news about grease wranglers.”

Currently, homebrewers can produce the fuel for about 90 cents a gallon, using directions and assistance easily found on the internet. A few key ingredients, like methanol, are needed.

“When I first started, nobody would sell me methanol because it’s used to make crystal meth,” Conz said. “So I have an account with the petroleum distributor and I just go and pick up methanol when I need it. But the chemical company doesn’t sell to the public so you have to have some sort of an account.”

Pretty much any diesel vehicle will work on biofuels with some modifications.

“The older diesels are really easy to buy on craigslist or eBay. I had a Jetta that I got for $300 bucks, I just tinkered with it for a couple of weekends because it wasn’t running, but then it started up and had ice cold AC. So I drove that for about four or five years and then I ended up selling it.”

Regulatory Nightmares?

As the number of local brewers grows, government regulators aren’t keeping up.

State vehicle inspectors, for example, have no way to properly pass or inspect certain vehicles that run on biodiesel.

Why? It runs too clean.

When Conz first attempted to get his 1982 Chevy van to pass Arizona emissions inspections, he faced his first problem with his technology not jiving with current government regulations.

Due to the van’s size and its one ton suspension, it was placed in the same class as 18-wheelers and school buses. In this class, the vehicle’s emissions are allowed 55 percent opacity, which means a beam of light is shone through the exhaust and a device measures how much of the light is blocked by dirty emissions.

“The initial reading was like 0.8 percent or something and it was below their minimal threshold, the computer wouldn’t allow them to process it so they had to recalibrate their censor three different times. They cleaned it with Q-tips and compressed air and they made me keep doing the test over and over and over and then they rejected me,” Conz says.

He didn’t fail, but he also didn’t pass, leaving him in legal limbo.

His only option was to fill his tank with regular diesel fuel in order to pass and then refill it with biodiesel for daily use.

And then there’s the safety issues, which are relatively small, but still existent. Across the Valley in the past couple years, at least four fires have been linked to home biofuel production, according to local reports.

It’s for this reason, Gilbert, Tempe and other Valley cities have looked at a permitting process for homebrewers. Gilbert is also considering whether to limit the amount of biofuel individuals can store on their property to 80 gallons.

It’s this growing government interest in what they do that has some homebrewers concerned.

“I’m not opposed to safety standards and regulations, but generally the way things are done is outlaw first and then it’s hard to make it possible to do,” Conz says.

“Unfortunately I predict it will be regulated to the point that nobody can do it anymore, so it won’t be enabled and encouraged, it will be acknowledged and prevented. That’s my prediction. It’s just a matter of time.”

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