Napa High School history teacher Brian King loves cars and trucks. He races cars. He’s got engine blocks in his garage.

So, when one of his favorite television programs, “Trucks” on Spike TV, did a show about fueling vehicles on biodiesel, turning vegetable oil into fuel, he paid attention.

“There were places selling pre-made stills to process vegetable oil into biodiesel, but a still cost $3,000 to $4,000,” said King. “It would take a long time to pay for itself. I kept looking into biodiesel and found a place in Berkeley that sells homemade processor plans to build a still yourself. I bought a book for $20 and took a few classes.”

Now, he makes biodiesel fuel in his garage. It costs 90 cents a gallon and powers his big Chevrolet Silverado diesel truck. The components for the still cost $600 and King estimates it took only a couple of months to make the money back.

“I’ve made no modifications whatsoever on my truck,” said King. “It gets the same mileage it got before.”

To start the process, King picks up used vegetable oil leftover from restaurant fryers at Red Rock Cafe and Red Rock North.

“It’s a win-win for the restaurants and me. They give me the oil and that way they don’t have to pay to have it removed from the premises.”

Once a week, usually on Sunday night, King heads to his garage for some home brewing. He makes 25-30 gallons at a time.

“First I pour it through a screen on a drum that filters out all the large pieces of fries or whatever. That oil gets pumped into a water heater where it’s heated to 135 degrees. Then I add a mixture of methanol and lye. You can buy methanol at Napa Valley Petroleum and the lye at any chemical supply house.”

The methanol is used as the mixing agent for the oil and lye. King explained that lye causes the glycerin in the oil to separate. The glycerin is biodegradable, but if the home brewer doesn’t want to toss it, it can be sold to soap making companies.

What’s left goes into a plastic tank for four cycles of water washing to further purify it.

“Then it’s pumped into a drum with a hose and gas handle just like at the gas station. I fill up my truck and go. The only expenses once you have the still are for the lye and methanol. We have a trip to Disneyland coming up, so I’ll be brewing like crazy. I’ll fill the tank and put an extra drum with the handle setup and a generator in the back of the truck for the drive home.”

King could switch back and forth to regular diesel fuel without harming the engine if he chose to, but he wants to make the trip all on biodiesel.

“When I tow my heavy trailer, I use a 50/50 mix with regular diesel because some people say that biodiesel causes a 5 percent loss of power. Although I haven’t found that to be the case, I do it just to be safe.”

A friend of his also powers his truck on biodiesel, but used a different method.

“He puts the vegetable oil directly in the vehicle and it costs 40 cents a gallon. But you have to alter the vehicle and run a heated tank system. You have to put in a second fuel cell. I didn’t want to alter my truck.”

He’s been running his truck on biodiesel for 14 months for more than 20,000 miles. His two children accompany him to the restaurants and wait while he pumps the used vegetable oil into smaller containers. King notes that not just any vegetable oil will work.

“There’s a process to test the oil. ... Fast food oil won’t do.”

King believes in biodiesel so much that he’s written a grant request to have alternate fuel classes taught at Napa High.

“The biggest challenge will be the insurance. The idea was that we could make the biodiesel fuel, the district could buy it from us for less than they’re spending now to power their diesel buses and other equipment, what we’d make from the sale we’d use to buy lye and methanol. Right now, I’m trying to locate other high schools or colleges who are already doing it successfully.”

Although he said it’s an easy and inexpensive product to produce, car manufacturers have been slow to embrace diesel.

“About 100 years ago, Rudolph Diesel designed this engine so that farmers could grow their own fuel and run their equipment on peanut oil. But, at that time, petroleum was cheap and it was easy to fill up their vehicles at the gas pump, so they stopped manufacturing it themselves. In 2001 the EPA forced a radical change to clean diesel vehicles. The Big Three carmakers developed smaller engines with more horsepower and efficiency. But the stigma still stuck with people who thought diesel was dirty. California lawmakers said no diesel cars in the state. You can buy a diesel car out of state and register it in California if it has 1,800 miles on it.”

While King said 50 percent of European cars are diesel, only Volkswagen, Mercedes and Jeep have diesel cars in the U.S.

“My wife’s car is getting toward the end of its lifespan and it would be silly not to buy a diesel car when she needs it.”

His enthusiasm spills over into his work and he often talks to science classes at Napa High about biodiesel.

“I like biodiesel because I’m a car guy, I’m saving a buck and I’m doing something, even on a small scale, to help the environment.”

Brew your own biodiesel

Brian King offers these as good research sites on the background of biodiesel and how to set up a home brewing project:

   www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

   www.biodieselnow.com

   www.biodieselcommunity.org