Yes you can. With a little more research. My town has many grease cars running around. You don't need biodiesel, just clean oil. Are you living in the bus? Can it spare some room? The best option in cold climates is to have 2 tanks. One to start with petro, and one with oil once warmed up. You should also 'flush' your lines with petro, before shutting off, so veg oil doesnt gunk up while sitting in the cold. You can even heat and filter dirty grease right in the bus directly from the source, with the right system.
From ecohearth.com:
Wednesday, 09 July 2014 00:00 | Written by Tonya Kay | Blog Entry
"Biodiesel Versus WVO
I run waste vegetable oil, which is different than biodiesel. Biodiesel is a vegetable-oil or animal-fat-based fuel that can be run in any diesel engine without modification (yes, right now in any diesel engine). The benefits of biodiesel are that it reduces emissions by 80% compared to gasoline and can be purchased at the pump in many large and small cities. (It is especially common in middle America, where farmers have been running biodiesel for decades.) However, it is a highly refined fuel—often processed from virgin oils or fats—that utilizes highly toxic chemicals such as methanol (not to mention electricity) in its production, and costs anywhere between $2.30 to $3.80 per gallon.
WVO is literally just used kitchen grease. The processing of it involves nothing more than hand-filtering to remove the deep-fryer floaters (
water and microscopic food particulate). Like biodiesel, WVO reduces emissions by 80%. But WVO has these added advantages:
It does not require chemicals or electricity in its processingIt is absolutely freeIt keeps a massive byproduct of our fast-food industry from being dumped into the ground water or used in our body soaps and cosmetics (yum...).
The drawbacks of WVO are (if you consider them drawbacks): you won't be hanging out at gas stations anymore and, indeed, a little Do-It-Yourself effort will earn you the right to offer under-the-hood public interviews.
Conversion Basics
Now, although the Black Mistress of 1893 could handle the most gelatinous of greases, modern diesel fuel-injection systems have been engineered to run on low-viscosity diesel fuel. They can handle thick grease only if the viscosity is reduced first. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: chemically (transforming the oil into biodiesel) or thermally. By heating the oil to 160-180 degrees, the viscosity is reduced to that of diesel fuel and voila! Rudolph's dream is realized.
So the conversion process is not an engine conversion at all, but add-on hardware that heats and filters the WVO before it gets to the engine. On my car, a hot little 2001 TDI VW Jetta, the add-ons begin at the main tank, which holds 15 gallons and is now used for waste vegetable oil. Two electric heating pads (drawing seven amps each) are installed underneath the main tank. They start heating the grease as soon as your key turns in the ignition.
From the heated main tank, a new fuel line is run to a custom 10-micron veggie fuel filter in the engine. The new fuel line is "wrapped" in two lines of coolant borrowed from the radiator, assuring that when the engine reaches running temperature, the already heated main-tank veggie fuel will maintain its 190-degree temperature all the way to the fuel filter, which is wrapped in another seven-amp heating pad. At this point, the veggie fuel—filtered and fluid—is ready to go!
My personal conversion includes one additional add-on to accommodate the compulsive gypsy lifestyle I lead. You see, I can't tell you where I will be next week, let alone next winter, so I chose to install a two-tank system on my car. The two-tank system equips my WVO machine with a small five-gallon auxiliary tank (mine sits in the trunk around the spare tire) that is filled with biodiesel or diesel for cold-weather start-up and shutdown. When temperatures fall below 50 degrees, my Jetta prefers a two-block biodiesel transition. Mercedes, BMWs, trucks, semis and tractors will obviously have preferences of their own. It is fair to say that every installation is a custom conversion."
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