Many vegetable oils have similar fuel properties to diesel fuel, except for higher viscosity and lower oxidative stability. If these differences can be overcome, vegetable oil may substitute for #2 Diesel fuel, most significantly as engine fuel or home heating oil.For engines designed to burn #2 diesel fuel, the viscosity of vegetable oil must be lowered to allow for proper atomization of fuel, otherwise incomplete combustion and carbon build up will ultimately damage the engine. Many enthusiasts refer to vegetable oil used as fuel as waste vegetable oil (WVO) if it is oil that was discarded from a restaurant or straight vegetable oil (SVO) or pure plant oil (PPO) to distinguish it from biodiesel.

"The car now has two fuel tanks - one for diesel, which you need to start and warm up the car, and the other tank contains the used cooking oil. I installed a filter for the vegetable oil and two valves. One valve cuts the diesel fuel off and the other turns the oil on. The whole job took a day and a half."

Cooke'e Environmental Services set to introduce Viesel -- a vegetable oil based fuel. Cooke's Environmental Services also has converted its entire fleet of trucks, cars, and equipment to run on the new alternative fuel.

"It shouldn't be a surprise that a country that runs on fast food would expect their cars to do the same." The Ford Motor Company's take on people who claim to run their diesel-operated vehicles on cooking oil. Another very interesting turn in the growing interest in finding alternative energy sources.

At first glance, Tom Tilton's 1985 Mercedes-Benz hardly seemed the poster car for environment-friendly Alternative Transportation Day. Its owner, Tilton, begs to differ: "The Beast," he says, runs on B-100, or 100 percent biodiesel - a clean-burning alternative fuel that can be processed from vegetable or animal fats, including used cooking oil.

A Japanese research team plans to create environmental awareness by entering a race car in the Dakar rally that runs on cooking oil used to fry tempura.