Converted: This tank, in the trunk of a converted green grease car, holds waste vegetable oil. (Photo: Ben Falk, from the Green Grease Monkey website.)

by Mark Baard

As gas prices pass four bucks per gallon, green grease has never looked so good.

And with more entrepreneurs entering the Boston biodiesel and waste vegetable oil market, prices for the stuff are plummeting.

“The grease wars have begun in earnest,” Green Grease Monkey Patrick Keaney told me in an email this week.

The Boston Globe’s Robert Gavin today reports that premium is already way over four bucks, “while diesel hit a whopping $4.72 a gallon in Massachusetts.”

But if you own a car converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO), you can fill your tank (the plastic one in your trunk, that is), for as little as ten cents per gallon.

“I can’t keep the stuff on site,” Keaney said of his own, filtered, WVO product. “It’s crazy.”

Keaney is selling WVO, which he gathers from local restaurant kitchens, for $1.50 per gallon.

Now New Hampshire companies are coming to Boston, “offering $0.10/gal. for
grease!” said Keaney. “And some guy on Craigslist is offering $0.20.”

If you already drive a diesel, the Green Greasemonkeys and Boston Biofuels are offering B100 (100 percent biodiesel) at a very reasonable $4.00 per gallon.

You can pour biodiesel straight into the tank of your diesel car — no conversion necessary.

Spring is a good time to take a chance on WVO or biodiesel. The warm weather means you won’t have too warm up your tank in the morning. (WVO and biodiesel can gel at low temperatures, one reason WVO cars have a switch that toggles between the veggie oil and diesel tanks. Continue reading →