by
Carl Hampton
09/14/2006
Imagine a world where your old cooking
oil replaces the need for gasoline. Instead
of pumping your car at a gas station for
$3.30 a gallon, you drive to one of your
local restaurants and fill up for pennies.
The funny thing is, you don't need to
imagine anymore. That's right!!!! No matter
how many times you read this, the facts
remain the same. Who ever thought cooking
oil could be so multi-functional, the same
stuff you use to fry your chicken and french
fries can be now be used in your gas tank.
Environmentally friendly, the use of this
household product is nothing new, especially
for cars and trucks powered by diesel
engines. This low emission oil has been an
alternative for some time now, even before
gas prices went on the rise. The first test
results were around as far back as when gas
prices were less than a dollar per gallon
(what a sweet memory that is).
Should you decide to start using your old
cooking oil in the car, here are some tips
you may wish to keep in mind. You would of
course need to filter the oil. At current
pricing, the filtering system will cost you
somewhere around a thousand dollars. The
cost in the long run would be well worth it
for your pocket book and for the
environment. Cooking oil burns a lot slower
than gasoline because it is thicker which
means it lasts longer, but there are a few
ways to work with that because it can have
its hazards as well. You could thin the oil
out or buy a separate gas tank so you can
switch between two gas tanks: cooking oil
and regular gas. That works if you are a bit
uneasy about completely using cooking oil.
Before we all get too carried away let’s
have a look at an interesting nugget of
information. Even though gas prices have
been high this summer with little or no sign
of going down any time soon, these current
gas prices are not record breaking in
comparison to the 1973 Oil Crisis which took
gas prices from 30 cents a gallon to 55
cents a gallon. The minimum wage at that
time was less than $2.00 an hour. In
addition, car owners could only purchase gas
on certain days depending on what numbers
were on their license plate. Just try to
imagine going through that nightmare today.
But the problem still remains, with millions
of American families living from paycheck to
paycheck, these ridiculously high gas prices
are now forcing people to look at
alternative ways to work around it. The
environmental buffs are very pleased to
point out that the sales of hybrid cars has
drastically risen over the last year. The
problem with this is that most hybrid cars
are far more expensive than the normal car
and the payback can take many years. There
also appears to be a big raise in the use of
public transportation again! Many people are
now thinking more about how and when they
use their cars. Do I really need to make
this trip? It would appear that the most
cost-effective solution open to us at this
time is to purchase cars that give you the
best MPG (miles per gallon), something the
rest of the world has been doing for years.
Those poor British car owners have been
paying over $8.00 a gallon for years now,
and they produce their own oil from the
North Sea.
Have we really reached the point where
alternative sources of energy such as our
old cooking oil have become a real solution
to our problem ?
Have an opinion or a question you would like
me to answer, then write me!
http://www.CarlHampton.com
