The Gasoline Alternative: CoAg Student Treks to Alaska and Back in Grease-burning Benz

If Ag Illustrated gave a prize for the most interesting how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation story from a CoAg student, junior Scott Wilcox might be a shoo-in to win.

Wilcox and a buddy from his hometown of Charlottesville, Va., spent half the summer driving to, and across, and back from Alaska in a '76 Mercedes Benz fueled by used restaurant grease.

And when the 13,000-mile trek was completed, the two had burned up more than 500 gallons of free, used vegetable oil and only $89 worth of diesel fuel.

Wilcox says the venture was born partly of necessity.

"We wanted to go to Alaska, and we figured this was the only way we could afford to do it," the 21-year-old horticulture major says.

But by and large, the trip was about promoting and raising awareness of alternative fuels.

"We aren't saying everybody should convert their cars to run on restaurant grease," says Wilcox, whom traveling companion Luke Scruby describes as "a biofuel evangelist." "We just wanted to show them it would work and that there are options to gasoline out there."

It was in late May that the two made their first start on the journey to Alaska, that time in a refurbished grass-green 1985 school bus that proclaimed "POWERED BY RECYCLED VEGETABLE OIL" in eight-inch yellow letters on the sides.

Wilcox and Scruby, a junior chemical engineering major at the University of Virginia, had spent months getting the bus ready for the trip: Scruby on the mechanical end of things, fitting the bus with hoses, pipes, filters and tanks that would convert raw vegetable oil to fuel, and Wilcox equipping their ride with such amenities as a sink, a propane stove, an old sofa and beds.

But on the interstate 40 miles west of Indianapolis, the bus—dubbed the Doris Cooper "because she looked old, like a Doris, but she handled like a Mini Cooper," Wilcox explains—sputtered and died, succumbing to 1,114,000 road-weary miles.

"We rented a U-Haul, packed up our lives, and drove home," Wilcox says. "It was heartbreaking to have to sell our bus after all the love and work we put into it—but it was even worse to think about not making it to Alaska."

So, they didn't think about it. Driven by their Alaska-or-bust mindset, the two had no sooner hit the Charlottesville city limits than they set to work equipping Scruby 's Mercedes for the trip. Never mind that the sedan had 400,000 miles on the odometer already; they were determined to add another 13,000 to make it to the 49th state.

Some time back, Scruby had converted "The Benz," as they took to calling the car, to run on vegetable oil, but they had to prepare it for a major road trip, including installing a 30-gallon tank. They put the filtration system in the trunk, loaded up the back seat area with a few clothes and other necessities, like Wilcox's guitar and washboard, and hit the highway.

In the months prior to their travels, Wilcox had concentrated on setting up the logistics for the trip—primarily touching base with restaurants along the way to set up fuel stops.

"We knew we'd be OK on this side of the Canadian border, but Canada and Alaska were the great unknown," Wilcox says. "I mailed out 300 letters to restaurants on our route, letting them know that we were coming through and to ask if we could get their grease."

Many, they never heard back from, but plenty said our grease is your grease, so come and get it.

Early on, the two pioneering travelers learned to pretty much steer clear of chain restaurants, especially the fast-food variety. For one thing, most of the managers weren't authorized to give away their used grease—go figure—and for another, the oil tended to be on the dirty side.

"Independent family restaurants were usually our best bet," Wilcox says. Their most desirable oil sources: independent Mexican establishments.

"They have the cleanest oil, I guess because they're mostly frying tortillas," Wilcox says.

The way it worked, once they got the OK to get the oil, they'd drop a suction strainer hose into the restaurant's grease trap and transfer the oil up into the Benz's tank, where it then would run through a series of filters. They always cranked up on the diesel fuel just long enough to warm up the engine before switching it to the vegetable oil. And at the end of a day's travel, they'd switch back to diesel for a few minutes to keep the grease from congealing in the engine.

The travelers made it to Alaska in six days on a route that took them through the likes of Cincinnati, Ohio; Madison, Wis.; Minneapolis, Minn; Fargo, N.D.; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Regina, Saskatchewan; Edmonton, Alberta; Dawson Creek, British Columbia; and Whitehorse, Yukon. Then they spent three weeks traveling "nearly every road in Alaska," Wilcox says, and then making the long haul back.

The shoestring-budget odyssey didn't allow for overnight accommodations, so many nights were spent sleeping in the Benz. But they had their share of overnight offers.

"Drive up on vegetable oil, and you're pretty much everybody's friend," Wilcox says. "We'd go into a place and they'd find out what we were doing, and we'd come out with a free meal and a place to stay.

"The people we met were the best part of the trip," he says. "I still can't get over how nice people were, and how many friends we made. I guess you could say the trip renewed my faith in humanity."

Wilcox came to AU in the fall of 2003 as a freshman in horticulture landscape design.

"I wanted to major in horticulture, and it came down to Auburn and (the University of) North Carolina," he says. "Auburn won, because it's the best."

Strangely enough, it was only after Wilcox got to Auburn that the sustainability bug bit him.

"Back home, everybody recycles everything without thinking much about it, but when I got here, nobody recycled anything, and that blew my mind," he says. He soon joined the AU Environmental Awareness Organization, a group whose specific goal is to establish a recycling program on the AU campus. This year, the bike-riding, fuel-conserving Wilcox is serving as president of the group.

And it is the alternative-fuel front where Wilcox sees his career heading. Already, he and Scruby have formed a limited-liability company, Alternate Transport LLC, which is dedicated to researching and educating the public about alternative fuels.

The trip in the Benz fulfilled both those objectives.

"We just wanted to show people it could be done," Wilcox says.

As for the final stats, the 13,000 round trip to Alaska burned up just two tanks of diesel and about 520 gallons of restaurant grease.

And, no, they didn't want fries with that.

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