Well for those of you who haven’t heard yet, I sold my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. I actually sold it over a month ago but have been waiting to post about it until I purchased my new car so I could tell you all about it. Unfortunately, I had some deals fall through and to make a long story short, I still don’t have my new set of wheels. Since it looks like I might be waiting another week or two to find the right car, I thought I would tell you what I am up to.

If you read my previous post about my Hybrid, you would know that I am the type of person who is willing to try new things and even pay a little extra if I think it will help minimize my footprint on this beautiful planet. So, when I started hearing about vegetable-powered vehicles, I knew those would be something I would be trying out. Since I no longer commute to work, and the Honda hybrid is an ideal commuting vehicle, I thought I would pass that on to another fortunate commuter and move onto this new project, a veggie-powered vehicle… but not just any vehicle, a camper.

OK, now before you say that I’ve gone crazy let me just say that I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and considering that I have been looking for a way to travel as much as possible, I think this may just help me do that. The idea is to convert the camper into a mobile office where I can continue to do the same type of work, both professional and educational, that I do now, but on the road. The idea to convert it to run on vegetable oil took hold as I realized the potential for huge reductions in my emissions, far greater than that of the hybrid, as well as the huge increase in savings on fuel (over $2.00 per gallon) and the potential this also has to draw new visitors to my web site (as I plan to use the vehicle to selflessly promote my own web site on this vehicle).

Now the trick is finding the right kind of camper than can be converted. Early on in my search I found a few that would have worked, however, I hadn’t done enough research at the time and I wasn’t ready to jump into those purchases. Now that I have done all my research I realize that those would have been great deals and am looking for more like them. The bottom-line is that the easiest method to go about doing this is to find a camper that already runs on diesel. Diesel engines, from what I have been able to gather, can successfully use vegetable oil as fuel. Only a few modifications must be made to the camper to help prepare the oil, through heating, for use in the engine.

I have a few people lined up that I’ll be speaking with this week and as always am keeping my eyes peeled for potential candidates, so if all goes well, I should have my new camper by the first week or two of January 2006. I will be sure to keep you posted of my progress. Wish me luck!