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Tuesday, October 16, 2001 If it smells like french fries, then it might be a motorcycleBy AUDREY PARENTE | News-Journal Staff Writer DAYTONA BEACH — What motorcycle smells like french fries, sounds like a diesel engine, but gets almost double the usual gas mileage? The soybean oil isn't the kind from the grocery shelf, but specifically refined to burn as fuel, said Benich, 39, of Albion, Pa. "There are five places that manufacture this stuff. I get it from a food processing plant in Chicago that is set up to produce 30,000 gallons a day but is only making 10,000," he said. "You can buy it from 5 gallons to a tanker, completely refined and ready to go into the fuel tank, with no modification to the fuel tank." He gets his in 5-gallon drums, he said. Joe Loveshe, industrial oil salesperson for Columbus Foods Company in Chicago, said his company makes about a million gallons of the refined oil each year. "We market it as a fuel additive, but most of it goes into other industrial uses," Loveshe said. Benich's bike cost about $15,000 to build, he said, much less than many of the Harleys that will be at this year's Biketoberfest. He currently pays about $2.50 a gallon for the soybean oil, but said his mileage increases from about 50 miles per gallon with diesel fuel, to more than 100 miles per gallon. "Emissions are reduced by 80 to 90 percent when you are running soybean oil, and it smells like you are cooking french fries, which is very pleasant compared to conventional exhaust odor," Benich said. Loveshe said some people describe the smell as more like "popcorn." The chemistry is nothing new. "This technology was used back in World War II, when they ran tanks on peanut oil," Benich said. He first experimented with alternative fuels several years ago when he heated his home with waste vegetable oil from fast food restaurants. "They will give it to you because they have to pay a service fee to dispose of it," he said. "I made a refining process in my garage, which heated the oil and took the glycerin out of it. I was into that for a while." At the time, Benich owned a traditional gas-powered motorcycle. Then, a neighbor remarked that he ought to build one with a diesel engine and he said it seemed like a good idea. "I built it completely from parts," he said. Then he decided to try the alternative fuel instead of diesel, but wanted something cleaner than waste vegetable oil. That's when he found the soybean product. Benich had the background to experiment with fuel from job experience at Detroit Diesel. He now heads the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections vehicle restoration plant inside the state prison, where inmates rebuild such heavy equipment as front-end loaders, road graders and dump trucks. While attending Biketoberfest, he said he plans to visit the Tomoka Correctional Facility, which has a similar vehicle restoration program. HICI Special Report: Future Fuels: Sparks? Soy? |
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