You can convert cooking oil to actual 100% biodiesel. I t sounds like firefox is talking about running on actual cooking oil wich can be done like he discussed. 100% biodiesel only needs additives for cold weather like actual diesel to stop gelling.

It does take some work to make the biodiesel but there is some automated equipment out there that makes it less work your initial investment for all the equipment is around $20,000 and makes around 80 gallons every 48 hours. So in theory you could make around 15,000 gallons a year. The cost for the materials assuming you get the oil for free is about 80 cents a gallon. Most places pay to have the oil taken away. So getting it for free is usually easy.

Now I do not know about diesel boat engines etc. but there are lots of people running regular diesel trucks on 100% biodiesel. It actaully burns cleaner than regular diesel

I do think that you can run a turbine powered boat without any problems on 100% biodiesel. There may be a little power loss but with twin 1400 or 1800 hp motors is a couple hundred hp per engine going to really be a loss.

db71,

Your right it burns cleaner, even the B20 we use makes a huge difference in the how bad your eyes burn. Diesel fuel has a smell to it and running an engine with little load makes it worse and by eyes tear after awhile. With the B20 the odor and eye burn is almost gone!

Bio fuel is the way to go in the future. We at Turbine Marine run up to 75% pure soy bean oil in our engines mixed with thiners. 100% is not realy working well.
When we fill the Geico race team boat up with bio, they run about 50% or so. Not 5-10 % as most people would think.

The only thing stopping bio fuels to become main stream is the State and federal covernment.
They manage to take a fuel that cost less then a dollar a galon to be produced (in the U.S), and make it a $3.50 per gal fuel.
They tax all the Bio fuel so hi, it is less expensive to run diesel.
That is the botom line.
They do not want you to use it, Period.
Typical Gov B.S.

Yeh thats what I was thinking, not 100%, but like 50-75%. And as far as I know cooking oil when converted/processed is what the guys I know are using with no problems, not running straight from the McD's fryer

Just seems diesels are getting more popular b/c of their torque, mileage, and reliability....except diesel prices have gone from being cheaper then regular to about a dollar more then premium . And then Ethanol almost doesn't make sense in autos, you lose noticeable power and big mpg difference, friend tried Ethanol in his Tahoe and went from 15 to 10 mpg. The slightly cheaper cost wouldn't overcome the mileage difference, end up costing more.

I see your point with Ethenol.
However I personally would not mind spending a little extra cash on ethenol if it made a diference on the enviroment due to milage.
I do however have a problem with giving the Gov close to 300% in taxes on a fuel that we are trying to use to make a diffence.
Dont get me started !!!!

j arruda,

What taxes exactly are you referring to and what are they in your state? In NY they give home owners a $0.20 credit to burn bio in the home heating oil.

I don't where you buy Biodiesel, but again in NY/NJ we pay under #2 for Biodiesel in small bulk (2,000 gals at a time).

I might be wrong here but your refernces to what Biodiesel costs to make are really off? A gallon of diesel is not very expensive to make either, add the price of crude, shipping, storage, distriubution, retail profit, wholesale profit, etc, etc and you have a high price.

You can't base Biodiesel costs on using used cooking oil. There is not enough used cooking oil to do it on grand scale, you need to factor in the cost of the cooking oil to begin with and then add all the other same costs that go with the distribution of diesel fuel as well.

Properly set for power generation its do able. But the funny thought of the day is someone cutting a hole in the engine hatch of their top gun so they can stand up that 60 gallon water heater in the engine compartment.

Joe,

Used cooking oil is available by the truck load from various food processing plants. They don't pay to have it taken away. They sell it because there is a demand. It can be used for manufacturing plastics, hydraulics, off road fuel and heating. Used cooking oil is a hot selling product.

The cooking oil I was refering to was that from mcdonalds or kfc or something they pay to have someone pick it up then the person picking it up sells it. So in theory if you go to mcdonalds and say hey I'll pick it up for free and supply the container they are usually greatful the downside is usually the person who owns mcdonalds owns 10 or more of them so you have to pick up from all there stores.

John thanks for the input I did not know if 100% would work or not but now I know. do you guys make your own biodiesel or do you buy it already made I would think the there would not be taxes for fuel used in a boat.

My figures are 300 gal fuel tank 75% biodiesel @ .80 a gal and 75 gallons @ 4.50 gallon $520 to fill up 300 gallon tank in boat with 3000+ hp.

Here's a link to several videos showing biodiesel production. Scroll down for the video page link.

http://utahbiodieselsupply.com/