If you smell French fries on the MTSU campus, it’s not your imagination, it’s one of the Raider Express buses. Yes! A bus that transports students around campus is now powered by vegetable oil. MTSU is committed to a greener, sustainable future with money from the Green Power Campus Initiative Fund, an $8 fee students pay each semester with $5 used to purchase green power from TVA and $3 used for renewable energy special projects. Through this fund, Dr. Charles Perry (engineering technology) hired mechanic Chris Gibson, who specializes in diesels and alternative fuels, to install a Greasecar conversion kit in the bus.
“I’ve been driving on vegetable oil for 6 years, and it’s great because it not only reduces my vehicle’s impact on the environment, but it also reduces my fuel bill significantly,” Gibson says.
Student Ryan Gilland assisted Gibson with the installation of this dual tank system that allows the bus to run on new or recycled vegetable oil, but still run on diesel or biodiesel.
Dr. Cliff Ricketts (agriculture dept.) is excited about the sustainability the Greasecar kit offers because not only is vegetable oil used, but it also uses some biodiesel, a diesel fuel replacement, that is also made on campus. Student Travis Mefford heads the biodiesel production which is made with a processor called a Fuel Miester. The bus will still need some diesel or biodiesel to heat the engine for start-up and to flush the engine when turning it off. If the vegetable oil tank is empty, the bus can still be driven on biodiesel or B-20 (a blend of 80% diesel and 20% biodiesel) because of an electronic switchover device called a “copilot,” which has a readout display of the engine and vegetable oil temperatures and the fuel level in the vegetable oil tank. In the future, Ricketts says, “The goal is for the bus to be fossil fuel free.”
In time, the bus will display graphics that promote the benefits of driving on alternative fuel.
“This bus conversion is an exciting way to demonstrate our students’ interest in renewable energy because of the visibility and reduced emissions which are 25 – 50% less than diesel and more economical because both recycled vegetable oil and biodiesel are made on campus,” Perry says.
In the future, an infrastructure will be created for filtering campus cafeteria oil. So there will be a sustainable closed loop on campus: the food that feeds students will create fuel for the bus. Interesting to note, healthy non-hydrogenated oil works better in the engine than organ-clogging hydrogenated oil. So oil that clogs the body also clogs the engine’s filter. If this pilot bus project works well, MTSU will consider converting more buses to drive on vegetable oil.
For questions about “driving green” or the MTSU Raider Express project, contact Chris Gibson at supersession7@earthlink.net or check out greasecar.com.
