A vegetable oil used for frying chips can become fuel for a Harley-Davidson. It is not a laboratory experiment, but a real project, carried out by Alex Jennison, student of the University of British Columbia. He dismantled and rebuilt a 1999 Heritage Softail, installing a diesel engine compatible with exhausted frying oil, also collected in the kitchens of the university campus.
The goal? Show that biocarbulators really work, even on a heavy vehicle like a Harley motorcycle. Today Alex is traveling along the west coast of the United States: over 2,000 km with a motorcycle that goes to food waste.
A Harley modified in 12 months with a 3 -cylinder diesel agricultural engine
For his project, Alex has chosen a Harley not surprisingly. The 1999 model is the last to have separate engine and gearbox, a technical feature that has facilitated the change. Together with his team, he completely disassembled the bike and installed a three -cylinder Kubota engine, usually used in tractors or small work means.
You need months of work, nights spent testing, and the support of the university technical team to adapt everything to the Canadian harsh climate. The chosen fuel is a biodiesel produced by used vegetable oil, transformed through a simple chemical process, already used by different agricultural and industrial realities.
The result is a motorcycle that turns on, runs long distances and consumes a fuel derived from what normally ends in the discharge of restaurants.
Less 74% of CO₂, without resorting to cobalt, lithium or other critical materials
The environmental impact of the project is not negligible. The bike is not at zero emissions, but reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a traditional diesel medium by 74%.
And not only that: it does not need batteries, nor materials such as cobalt, copper or lithium, whose extraction has often hidden social and environmental costs. Jennison underlines, for example, that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where most of the world cobalt is extracted, several workers in the mines die every week.
With this project, Alex wants to demonstrate that another way of feeding transport is possible, without simply moving the problem from a fossil source to another critical resource.
Biodiesel produced by exhausted vegetable oil is not an absolute novelty, but it remains little used. According to IFP Énergies Nouvelles data, in 2023 it represented only 4.8% of road fuels consumed in the world.
Yet according to Jennison, it is a resource already available. Restaurants pay to dispose of the exhausted oil, which could instead be treated and used to feed trucks, tractors, means of service. Vehicles for which, today, electric is not yet a realistic solution.
With his trip, Alex will touch 15 dealerships, 7 universities and numerous local communities. He wants to tell, the way by doing, as a refusal can become a resource, without promises from commercial, but with a bike that works every day on real roads.
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