Silver Spring man converts cars to run on veggie oil
Monday through Friday, Josh Winston sits in an office high above downtown Bethesda, crunching numbers as an accountant.
But come Saturday morning, Winston, 42, puts down the calculator, slides into a one-piece jumpsuit and tinkers with diesel engines and rounds up buckets of vegetable oil.
Winston has a hobby of converting diesel-powered vehicles to run on vegetable oil, grease that cooked chicken fingers or french fries last week.
"It's really pretty simple," the Silver Spring resident said. "Anyone with a pretty basic knowledge of cars or engines can figure it out."
Diesel engines can run on anything oil-based, even something as far-flung as sawdust, Winston said. Switching the hoses and building a new tank for the oil is more a matter of time than expertise.
Four years ago, Winston saw a television segment on diesel conversions and almost immediately ordered a conversion kit for his 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Since then he has converted not only his own car and an old mini-school bus he owns, but also a half-dozen cars and trucks from up and down the East Coast.
"Well, I sit at a desk all day and that's not much fun," Winston said of his accounting job. "But this, this is fun."
In front of his apartment sits a 1983 Itasca RV, the vehicle of a vegetable oil enthusiast from New Jersey. The owner found Winston through his Web site, www.feedmywheels.com, a side business he has created to convert vehicles to vegetable oil. The average conversion costs a customer between $1,500 and $2,000, Winston said, but the cost is relatively cheap compared with the cost of diesel fuel.
Running a car on vegetable oil, which can often be obtained for free, could save a vehicle owner hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fuel costs per year, Winston said.
"I get my oil from a Chinese restaurant down the street," he said. "At first they were confused about why I wanted it, but we have a nice arrangement now."
Montgomery County has created an online forum for used vegetable oil givers and takers, according to Peter Karasik, section chief for the county's Division of Solid Waste Services.
The 70-member forum, launched in November 2007, puts those possessing used vegetable oil — such as restaurants, bars and other vendors — in touch with people like Winston who want it.
"There's certainly no reason why anyone needs to waste vegetable oil now," Karasik said. "There's a whole host of people who would like it, and our goal is just to hook people up directly."
Although vegetable oil proponents say grease burns cleaner than diesel or gasoline, converting and running a car on vegetable oil is technically illegal in the United States, according to Cathy Milbourn, an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman.
"The Clean Air Act does prohibit these sorts of homemade conversions," she said. "There are conversion kits that we have certified that we say are suitable, but just vegetable oil is not a clean fuel."
Violating the Clean Air Act carries a $32,500 fine per violation if committed by a manufacturer or dealer, and a $2,750 fine if committed by any other person.
Winston estimated that fewer than 10,000 cars nationwide have been converted. The federal government does not keep records of vegetable oil-converted cars.
Winston said despite the legal implications, he's going to keep converting cars.
"It's probably going to be illegal for a long time until people start using [vegetable oil] regularly," he said. "Even the fine probably isn't worth anybody's time. Everybody who does this knows that and isn't praying that someone from the government won't show up at their door."
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