One of the things I noticed during my first trip to Brasil was that at every gas station we came to there was a choice of petrol, alcohol, or ethanol. Drivers buy whichever happens to be cheapest that day. Ford, and Chevrolet, and every other American car-maker that builds cars in Brazil designs them to run on any of these fuel sources. Consider then, that the reason you can't run cleaner burning alcohol in your car here, in the United States, is not because the technology doesn't exist, as these very car companies use it in their most basic designs in Brasil. When I got back to the country, we took on a challenge. My grandfather, who designs green homes in St. Louis Missouri, has been running Toyota Priuses since they came onto the market. Our challenge was to find a vehicle with comparable fuel economy that burned cleaner than the Prius, for a third of the price. Pictured above is our '99 Volkswagen Golf TDI, running on biodiesel. We bought the car for under six thousand dollars. Because it is a diesel engine, it can run biodiesel with no modifications. We picked it up at the shipping depot, drove it over to the Biofuel Oasis and filled. Running biodiesel, we're getting between 42 and 47 miles a gallon. Our first tank gave us 490 miles. Biodiesel does not combust until it reaches approximately 350 degrees, so you can store it in your trunk. We carry ten gallons in the back of the car, and then we can fuel when we want to. With a full tank and the fuel in the trunk we've got a thousand mile driving range. And of course, if you run out of biodiesel, you can fuel at any diesel station since the engine can run a blend of diesel and biodiesel at any time. The fuel filter needs to be changed more often when you are running biodiesel, as it acts as a solvent and will clean out accumulated residue in the fuel lines. I've also noticed, honestly, that the car doesn't have quite as much acceleration as it does running on diesel. That said, I can lie down behind my car and inhale at the tailpipe while its running and it smells like I'm sucking up fumes from a french fryer. And I don't pass out. Biodiesel sells for $3.65 a gallon presently at the Biofuel Oasis, but I'm getting over 40 mpg, and my car has the same emissions as a deep fryer. The simple truth is I just feel good driving it. And that makes me happy.
