Imagine a world where your old cooking oil replaces the need for gasoline. Instead of pumping your car at a gas station for $3.30 a gallon, you drive to one of your local restaurants and fill up for pennies. The funny thing is, you don't need to imagine anymore. That's right!!!! No matter how many times you read this, the facts remain the same. Who ever thought cooking oil could be so multi-functional, the same stuff you use to fry your chicken and french fries can be now be used in your gas tank.



Environmentally friendly, the use of this household product is nothing new, especially for cars and trucks powered by diesel engines. This low emission oil has been an alternative for some time now, even before gas prices went on the rise. The first test results were around as far back as when gas prices were less than a dollar per gallon (what a sweet memory that is).

Should you decide to start using your old cooking oil in the car, here are some tips you may wish to keep in mind. You would of course need to filter the oil. At current pricing, the filtering system will cost you somewhere around a thousand dollars. The cost in the long run would be well worth it for your pocket book and for the environment. Cooking oil burns a lot slower than gasoline because it is thicker which means it lasts longer, but there are a few ways to work with that because it can have its hazards as well. You could thin the oil out or buy a separate gas tank so you can switch between two gas tanks: cooking oil and regular gas. That works if you are a bit uneasy about completely using cooking oil.

Before we all get too carried away let's have a look at an interesting nugget of information. Even though gas prices have been high this summer with little or no sign of going down any time soon, these current gas prices are not record breaking in comparison to the 1973 Oil Crisis which took gas prices from 30 cents a gallon to 55 cents a gallon. The minimum wage at that time was less than $2.00 an hour. In addition, car owners could only purchase gas on certain days depending on what numbers were on their license plate. Just try to imagine going through that nightmare today.

But the problem still remains, with millions of American families living from paycheck to paycheck, these ridiculously high gas prices are now forcing people to look at alternative ways to work around it. The environmental buffs are very pleased to point out that the sales of hybrid cars has drastically risen over the last year. The problem with this is that most hybrid cars are far more expensive than the normal car and the payback can take many years. There also appears to be a big raise in the use of public transportation again! Many people are now thinking more about how and when they use their cars. Do I really need to make this trip? It would appear that the most cost-effective solution open to us at this time is to purchase cars that give you the best MPG (miles per gallon), something the rest of the world has been doing for years. Those poor British car owners have been paying over $8.00 a gallon for years now, and they produce their own oil from the North Sea.

Have we really reached the point where alternative sources of energy such as our old cooking oil have become a real solution to our problem?