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Introducing Bat Makumba's Veggie Oil bus!
Yes, Bat Makumba's tour bus runs on 100% Recycled Vegetable Oil. It's a converted airport shuttle bus that we bought from our friends in Aphrodesia. Basically the diesel engine has been converted to run off of two tanks... one contains diesel and/or biodiesel (a fuel made from plants) and the other contains veggie oil (yes the stuff you cook with). The engine has to be hot before switching to veggie oil so we always start the bus with diesel/biodiesel and then switch to the veggie tank.
When Rudolf Diesel debuted his new engine at the 1900 World Fair he ran it on peanut oil! Pretty soon the powers that be steered his new technology to run on petroleum-based fuel (which they were heavily invested in, of course). More than 100 years have passed and the same dynamic exists today. Converting to veggie oil fuel is one way of reclaiming this history... ANY DIESEL ENGINE can be converted to run on veggie oil and conversions kits usually run from $500 to $1000.
Vegetable oil burns cleaner than gasoline and in some places it can be bought commercially for far less than gas. You can also make your own... we usually get ours from the back of restaurants that use fryers (which can be a little messy). One of the best parts of touring with a veggie oil bus is that we're not dependent on big petroleum companies. Driving on vegetable oil is environmentally friendly and lessens America's dependence on foreign oil at the same time!
Bat Makumba is a member of the Clean Fuel Caravan Coalition.
Here are some links for more info:
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