Alternative Fuels Program Spotlights Veggie Cars

For three years, Instruc­tor Mark Arm­strong has been devel­op­ing an Alter­na­tive Fuels Pro­gram to iden­ti­fy cre­ative fuel options. Focus­ing on the use of mul­ti­ple fuels ver­sus only “one big replace­ment,” Mark’s advanced class held an open house on May 21 dis­play­ing diverse alter­na­tive fuel projects. Stu­dents built vehi­cles that “go from point A to point B fueled on plant-based veg­gie oil and plant-based alco­hol, i.e., French fry grease and fer­ment­ed grape juice,” Mark says. “This fuel has the poten­tial of being the fastest, the clean­est, the cheap­est, the most adapt­able, and by far the most plen­ti­ful. This fuel is electricity.”

At the open house stu­dents’ veg­gie car con­ver­sions run­ning on veg­gie fuel were­dis­played. Dis­cus­sions were held about how ethanol fuel (rot­ten grapes) can turn pis­tons and how water/alcohol injec­tion works as a cool­ing agent to coun­ter­act the tem­per­a­ture-increase in super high fuel effi­cient motors. Guests and media reps expe­ri­enced first­hand how the Alter­na­tive Fuel ful­fills its mot­to: “We teach and help you build a bet­ter machine using a bet­ter fuel.” The North Bay Elec­tric Auto­mo­bile Asso­ci­a­tion also met on May 21 to dri­ve the alter­na­tive “elec­tri­cal fuel” point home. Elec­tric Vehi­cles (EV) own­ers plugged­in­to the Trade Tech build­ing for a “fuel off” from new­ly installed solar pan­els on Trade Tech’s roof, essen­tial­ly fuel­ing up free.