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Photos: Getting around on biodiesel

Josh Tickell promotes biodiesel through books and a backyard equipped to make the alternative fuel.
By Bill Detwiler, Contributor
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1 of 5 Bill Detwiler/ZDNET

view to Tickell's backyard

A view into Josh Tickell's backyard, where you'll see an organic garden immediately to the left, his home office, his diesel-engine Volkswagen Jetta and a biodiesel fueling station with extra drums of the alternative fuel, which is made from vegetable oil. Tickell is the author of a book about the fuel, "Biodiesel America: How to Achieve Energy Security, Free America from Middle East Oil Dependence and Make Money Growing Fuel," due for release in February.

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home-fueling station

A home biodiesel fueling station, complete with pump, trolley and drum of biodiesel fuel ordered from a distributor, Biodiesel Solutions. Biodiesel proponent Josh Tickell plugs a cigarette-lighter adapter into his VW Jetta to power the pump.

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outside the home office

Josh Tickell outside his home office, just steps from his organic garden and biodiesel fueling station. Tickell drove a biodiesel vehicle, called the Veggie Van, across the country more than a year ago to promote the alternative fuel.

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biodiesel tanks

These plastic tanks in Josh Tickell's backyard are used to demonstrate how biodiesel fuel is made. The process involves mixing vegetable oil with an alcohol, typically methanol, and a catalyst, usually lye (or sodium hydroxide), to extract glycerin from the vegetable oil and "thin" it to make it compatible with the diesel engine.

"If you can make a margarita, you can make biodiesel," Tickell says.

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biodiesel fueling station

Biodiesel fueling stations are scarce. On Jan. 7, the Biodiesel Co-op--a group of artists, writers and designers living in the Los Angeles area--opened their own, members-only biodiesel fueling station in nearby Marina del Rey. Housed in a trailer behind a group of office buildings off U.S. Highway 90, the station serves as a convenient place for co-op members to fuel their diesel-engine vehicles.

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