TUCSON, Ariz. — Tom Carpenter was tired of people just talking about change, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

“I just didn’t want to support foreign oil,” he said. “I felt that a lot of our world problems were caused by the pursuit of petroleum products and by the usage of petroleum products. I didn’t want to contribute to those problems.”

Carpenter, a captain of the Tucson Fire Department, has eliminated his dependence on foreign oil by converting his Dodge truck into a lean, mean, veggie-burning machine that runs on old vegetable oil.

His alternative fuel ideas are carried a step further in his backyard, where Carpenter refines the vegetable oil and makes biodiesel.

Biodiesel is a fuel with numerous environmental and economic benefits that the Tucson community is beginning to embrace.

All Tucson Fire Department trucks and all City of Tucson diesel engines are powered by B20, a blend of 80 percent petroleum and 20 percent biodiesel. Even the University of Arizona’s student shuttle, the CatTran, runs on biodiesel.

“Anybody who has a diesel engine can use biodiesel,” said Colleen Crowninshield, manager of Clean Cities, an alternative fuel program run by Pima Association of Governments and the U.S. Department of Energy. “That’s one of the biggest perks.”

"Biodiesel demand is growing worldwide," said Shane Tyson of Rocky Mountain Biodiesel Consulting.

Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel option for people with diesel engines, Crowninshield said, whose program helps promote alternative fuels and conserve regular fuel.

There are widespread benefits of using biodiesel, said Megan Hartman, owner of Fourth Dimension Fuels, which was founded with the mission to bring biodiesel to communities.

“Biodiesel combusts more completely so there is less particulate matter; you’re getting more complete combustion and less junk coming out,” Hartman said.

Running 100 percent on biodiesel eliminates 48 percent of carbon monoxide emissions and 47 percent of other particulate matter, according to Biodiesel.org,. There are 67 percent less unburned hydrocarbon emissions by using biodiesel, culminating in a smaller effect on the ozone layer.

This all translates to better air quality, Crowninshield said, and less carcinogens, Hartman said.

There’s also no sulfur in biodiesel so burning it doesn’t emit the sulfates that burning petroleum does. That cuts down the chance of acid rain, which is caused partially by these sulfates.

Regular diesel may be more accessible, but you can find a pump that sells biodiesel by checking out NearBio.com. The site also sends texts to your cell phone with nearby locations.

“You’re also going to have 80 percent less wastewater from making biodiesel compared to refining regular diesel,” Hartman said. “Plus, hazardous solid waste production is reduced by 95 percent when you’re doing biodiesel.”

Overall, the fuel is non-toxic and biodegradable so a spill would not be an environmental disaster.

Biodiesel can be locally grown, saving the country jobs and money and reducing the dependence on foreign oil, Hartman said. It takes less energy than petroleum to produce because it’s grown by the sun and it’s easily renewed because it comes from vegetables.

The complete combustibility and high lubricity of biodiesel makes it better than petroleum for engines, Hartman said.

“There’s less wear and tear," she said. "You can actually extend the life of your engine by running the biodiesel."

Some people, like Carpenter, skip the gas pumps and use straight vegetable oil in their diesel engines.

While you can put vegetable oil in an engine, it’s not recommended because it causes a lot of build-up and may eventually ruin your engine, Hartman said.

“To use vegetable oil in your diesel vehicle, it’s recommended that you do a conversion which heats up the oil to make it thinner,” she said.



Conversion kits are available starting at $600 up to $2,000. Hartman said that the conversion can be done as a do-it-yourself effort “if you’re up for the challenge.”

“I wanted to prove a point that I’m no diesel expert. … If I can do it, anybody can do it,” Carpenter said of his own conversion, which uses a filter powered by heat from the engine to refine the vegetable oil.

Grecycle is a Tucson company which collects waste vegetable oil from restaurants to convert to biodiesel.

“We’re recycling grease,” Mike Kazz said of the organization.

Most of the grease is from restaurants that make tortilla chips and French fries, two foods that require deep frying.

“I think it’s really important to ask questions about biodiesel, though,” Hartman said. “Biodiesel can be done in a crazy non-sustainable way if people don’t care about the environment and they’re just trying to make a buck.”

Tyson explained the environmental debate involving biodiesel as very complicated because of the production of vegetables, like oil palms and soybeans, to make biodiesel.

“There is new land being converted from rainforest to plantations both in Asia and Brazil,” said Tyson, partly referring to significant deforestation in Indonesia. “They’re converting those lands into palm oil plantations and soybean plantations.”

Burning rainforest puts a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Tyson said.

“The climate could permanently change because just one straw breaks the camel’s back," she said.

Burning biodiesel may also increase nitrogen oxide emissions, which creates ground-level ozone pollution.

Tyson still thinks biodiesel is a good source of alternative fuel.

“I think the benefits of biodiesel are very strong and that we do have to find solutions to augment petroleum supplies," she said.

"Petroleum won’t be there forever so we need to have a back-up plan. We can’t produce enough biodiesel to replace petroleum, but it’s a start."

So, if biodiesel is better for the environment and engines, why doesn’t everyone with a diesel engine fill up on the green stuff?

“Getting people to change their habits is difficult even if the new habit is better for the environment,” Hartman said.

“It’s not going to take just a change in the way we use fuel,” Carpenter added. “It’s a personal choice.

"We have to have a paradigm shift in the way we think about life in general if we want to make the planet better and get past the oil generation.”