Saturday, July 19, 2008
There are potential problems for people who don’t understand the process, he said.
Scripps Howard
SENECA, S.C. — The sign on the side of Steve Rushton’s trucks says his drivers and his trucks eat at Paws Diner.
The popular U.S. 123 diner is a supplier of used cooking oil that Rushton turns into fuel for his fleet of tow trucks. Rushton, owner of Valley Services and the former owner of Death Valley Exxon in Clemson, has, like everyone else, seen the price of gas skyrocket in the last year.
“Everyone should recycle,” Rushton said.
Signs on Rushton’s trucks say his vehicles are powered by waste vegetable oil and that recycling makes us all better.
Rushton said he turned to an alternative fuel as a matter of survival for his business. His chemistry background, management and gasoline station experience has enabled him to create what he calls a better mousetrap.
“The process was developed by a German chemist who was in the country helping with the [Hurricane] Katrina cleanup,” Rushton said. “He put it on the Internet, and a lot of people are trying it.”
Use of vegetable oil as a fuel is not only cheaper, but reduces greenhouse gases, which have been blamed for global warming, the National Biodiesel Board reports.
Rushton said he recognized some potential problems for the untrained person trying to turn used cooking oil into fuel. Problems included temperature changes and the filtering process before a finished product is usable.
“At 22 degrees, the oil can gel,” Rushton said. “You also have to filter out all the unwanted particles.”
Rushton said his fuel is about 80 percent vegetable oil.
He knew of one man who tried to use cooking oil that contained even a small amount of animal fat and it turned to a mayonnaiselike substance in his diesel BMW.
“It cost him $1,500 to have his engine cleaned out,” Rushton said.
Rushton said he pays 42 cents a gallon road tax to South Carolina, but is looking forward to the Internal Revenue Service approving 50 cents per gallon alternative fuel tax credit.
Including the state road tax, Rushton manufactures his fuel for about $2 a gallon. Diesel fuel now costs about $4.72 a gallon.
His process involves a filter that is twice as efficient as the average fuel filter in today’s vehicles and a certain blend of additives, including kerosene and gasoline.
Rushton, 54, was recruited to Clemson in 1974 to work on a master’s degree in textile chemistry. After financial resources evaporated, he took a job as the manager of a McDonald’s. Rushton said he is on the dean’s list as a graduate of Hamburger University and that those three weeks of management training provided by McDonald’s is the best training in the country.
Rushton said his philosophy is simple.
“Work hard for the people you are working for and if they don’t notice, someone will,” Rushton said.
That philosophy helped him land a partnership in Death Valley Exxon. He later became the full owner of the service station and, after 25 years, sold it.
Rushton said he hopes to find additional suppliers of used vegetable oil and he is considering starting a cooperative where people could trade vegetable oil for fuel.
“I need to do more research on the license requirements for such an enterprise,” he said.