By John Wolfson Seattle Times staff reporter

OLYMPIA — It sounds like a fantasy tale or the wildest concoction of the wildest environmentalist, but the simple fact is this: With some cooking oil, a couple of chemicals and the right safety equipment, anybody can mix up a fuel that will power any diesel engine. If you drive a diesel car, you can do it, too, for about 60 cents a gallon. Or you can just buy biodiesel, as the fuel is known, for a higher cost — just like the drivers who line up at Dr. Dan's in Ballard. It's now available in all 50 states and at an increasing number of filling stations.

City, state and federal agencies across the country — including Tacoma garbage haulers — are mixing biodiesel with regular petroleum diesel to improve air quality. Biodiesel use in the United States tripled between 2000 and 2001, to 15 million gallons.

But for all of its growing acceptance, the soul of biodiesel resides in people such as Mike Pelly and the two men he met a couple of months ago at the Blue Heron Bakery, an Olympia whole-grain bakery that doubles as a meeting center for alternative types. It was there that they decided to form a biodiesel co-operative and forged their dreams to home-brew this stuff and someday make it available to everyone who wants it.

In years to come, truckers could buy French fries one day and a few days later buy fuel made from the same oil that cooked their fries.

Already, Pelly has built a processor, which he hopes to make available to cooperatives everywhere, that converts used restaurant oil into a brew that powers his car.

Learning about biodiesel seven years ago changed the direction of Pelly's life. He and his wife were already living off-the-grid, using wind, solar and a small backup gas generator to provide their power.

Then he saw a documentary about five women who drove across the country in a van powered only by biodiesel. Pelly, a carpenter, was amazed. He knew immediately what he wanted to do. So he enrolled at The Evergreen State College, studying chemistry and renewable energy, and began work on a machine to whip up his own biodiesel.

Pelly has since built his biodiesel processor, which does the mixing, sorting and settling to produce the fuel. And he has hooked up with biodiesel fans Kenn Nied and Ozzy, who goes by a single name and prints silk-screen shirts using only nontoxic dyes.

Each week Pelly, Ozzy and Nied pick up used cooking oil, or "yellow grease," from one of five restaurants in Olympia. They've tried to find more sources, but many of the famous fast-food restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores you've heard of won't let them have theirs.

Last week, they backed Ozzy's beat-up diesel pickup into an alley behind Ramblin' Jacks restaurant and unloaded a long white tube with a pump at one end.

Mike Pelly works on his biodiesel processor, which converts used restaurant oil into a fuel that powers his vehicle. The cost: about 60 cents a gallon. Ozzy clipped what looked like jumper cables to the truck's battery, and the pump began to whir. Then he lowered the pump into a drum of yellow grease while Pelly stuck the other end of the hose in the empty barrel in the pickup. A couple of restaurant workers on a smoke break seemed to find the whole thing amusing, these grown men hopping around barrels and tubes and containers. In 15 minutes, the barrel in the truck was full, and Ozzy pulled away, motoring the raw material home in a vehicle running on 100 percent biodiesel.

Because the yellow grease is free — besides the sweat and time it takes to get it — the men can make their fuel for about 60 cents a gallon. They've so far made about 250 gallons using the latest version of Pelly's machine, and he figures he's close to offering a final version, one with larger tubes and better filtration, for sale to co-operatives and farmers. He hopes he can sell a unit for $3,000 or less.

His machine makes it dramatically easier to create biodiesel, with the biggest benefit that it shouldn't be necessary to actually touch the oil. But it's still a lot of work and will likely always be useful to only a subset of enthusiasts with the time and passion to make their own, similar in many ways to home-brewing beer.

But there would definitely be a market, says Dan Freeman, known as Dr. Dan to his Seattle customers who buy biodiesel from Dr. Dan's Alternative Fuel-Werks in Ballard. Freeman buys his biodiesel directly from a California company. He has been selling it for less than a year and already has 130 customers who pay $2.50 a gallon for the fuel, which is made from virgin, not recycled, soy oil.

"I'd say a third of my customers bought their vehicles with the idea of making their own, but they're too busy," Freeman said. "But Mike is working on a kit, a home-brew kit that could make it easier. I think it's a real possibility. I wouldn't even mind selling some of the recycled stuff."

When he's not hauling it around the state to various fairs and exhibitions, Pelly keeps his processor bolted to a trailer at Ozzy's home in Olympia. That's where they mix up their batches.

A ½-horsepower electric pump sucks the yellow grease out of the barrels and sends it, through two screeners, to an inverted, 50-gallon drum with a cone-shaped bottom. At the same time, the pump draws a mix of methanol and lye from a plastic container mounted to the processor and combines it with the yellow grease.

A series of chemical reactions causes the molecules of the various substances to combine and create biodiesel. The fuel will power any diesel motor without a single modification.

"If somebody can home-brew beer, they can do this," Ozzy said. "I compare it to the difficulty of gardening or home-brewing."

Pure biodiesel produces 60 to 90 percent fewer air toxins than petroleum diesel. And even B20, a 20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent petroleum diesel mix used by most government agencies, sends out 12 to 20 percent fewer emissions.

For all its emission reductions, however, biodiesel actually sends out 6 percent more nitrous oxide than petroleum diesel. It also tends to gel in cool weather, some say at 40 degrees, though Pelly insists it's cooler than that. The gelling can be overcome with certain additives, however, or by simply pumping a bit of petroleum diesel into your tank.

The Spokane County Conservation District has taken a lead role in trying to get the state to offer tax incentives for alternative fuels, including biodiesel. The group, an umbrella agency of the Washington State Conservation Committee, has begun lobbying state lawmakers to reduce the state fuel tax for alternative fuels.

Right now, all fuels in Washington, alternative or petroleum, are taxed at 47.3 cents a gallon. More than a dozen states offer tax incentives for the use of alternative fuels.

"It's going to be a tough sell in this year's state Legislature because of the budget problems," conceded spokesman Jim Armstrong. But the group hopes the Legislature will at least consider rebating the 1 percent Business and Occupation Tax to businesses that use alternative fuels.

Armstrong said it's in the state's interest to offer such breaks.

"All the studies have shown that diesel smoke is one of the most carcinogenic substances that we breathe," he said, pointing out that many of the state's school buses burn diesel. "Do we really want our kids lining up, waiting for the bus, and breathing all that?"

Ozzy realizes biodiesel will probably remain a bit player in the fuel industry for many years. But he thinks a core group of consumers will seek out biodiesel because, as he believes, it's the right thing to do.

"Aren't there people who just don't buy Twinkies?" he asked, leaning against his truck. "No, not everyone in the world is going to do this. But it's a big deal to do a little. A little trickle starts a big flood."

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2002