Golden Age Technologies

Creating Environmentally Friendly Vehicles for the Golden Age

By brother-initiate Richard Stewart, Los Angeles, CA, USA
(Originally in English)

Rear of the author's WVO-fueled station wagon with a sign reading "Powered by Vegetable Oil."

Yes, the automobile is bad. Maybe you should start something. You could write a slogan for the street: “Stop all this smoke; invent something new!

~by Supreme Master Ching Hai

Inspired by Master’s Words

In January 2005, inspired by Supreme Master Ching Hai’s many admonitions to initiates about protecting the environment, I began a business converting diesel engines to run on clean burning new or used vegetable oil. The company’s slogan is “Improving Earth’s environment through ‘liquid solar energy’” (i. e., vegetable oil fuels).

A dialog that especially motivated me was “Support Environmental Protection and Rescue Our Planet,” conducted in New York, USA on August 4, 1999. During this exchange Master and an audience member say the following:

Q: If you think we’re entering the Golden Age, is the world going to be better?

M: Yes. Don’t you feel the world is getting better already?

Q: The problem is car exhaust; they need to invent more solutions because I don’t like exhaust.”

M: “That’s right. It’s terrible. When I see car exhaust and inhale it, it makes me feel very bad.”

Then in the same talk Master says, “Yes, the automobile is bad; you’re right. Maybe you should start something. You could write a slogan for the street: “Stop all this smoke; invent something new!” And finally She suggests, “We’ll do the best we can and hope the world will learn. Share whatever information you can with whomever you know, at least physically.”

Research Period and Dr. Diesel’s Prediction

After hearing these words I saw an April 2004 NBC news report on a woman who owned a diesel car powered by 100% waste vegetable oil (WVO) and began researching the subject of alternative fuels. I soon found that among all the current substitutes for gasoline and petroleum-based diesel fuel, pure new or used vegetable oil is the engine fuel that contributes least to the so-called “anthropogenic [human made] greenhouse effect” and global warming because it puts no excess carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, emits no sulfur (as does petro-diesel fuel) and is very low in other emissions such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter (soot).

This “no net CO2 effect” is due to the fact that all the carbon dioxide generated by engines running on vegetable oil is returned to the plants that produced it through photosynthesis (the process by which plant life grows using CO2 and water to make sugars and oxygen). In turn, the plants produce more veggie oil to be burned in the engines and so on, in what is known as a “continuously sustainable carbon cycle.”

By contrast, burning fossil fuels such as gasoline and petroleum-based diesel fuel contributes significantly to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect and in turn to global warming because these fuels emit massive amounts of surplus CO2 that has been stored in our planet’s crust for millennia, and which enters the air in quantities too large to be re-absorbed by Earth’s vegetation through photosynthesis.

Dr. Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine and vegetable oil fuel advocate

 

I also learned that from the 1890s to his death in 1913 Dr. Rudolf Diesel, the diesel engine’s inventor, used peanut oil and other vegetable oils as fuels, and even displayed a peanut-oil-powered diesel engine at the 1898 Exhibition Fair in Paris. In fact, during this time Dr. Diesel stated, “The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oil and will aid considerably in the development of agriculture in the countries that use it.” And he also predicted, “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today [1912], but such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum.”

This fascinating information further spurred my interest so I quickly set out to dispose of my gasoline powered car, buy a diesel vehicle and convert it to run on 100% veggie oil. Then a mechanic friend (with a little help from me) converted my 1984 Mercedes-Benz diesel station wagon using a pre-fabricated conversion kit, and in December 2004 I began driving on pure WVO, which I collect from the Los Angeles Center kitchen and local restaurants, filter and then pour into my fuel tank. The day I first drove my WVO-powered car down the freeway and smelled the clean burning WVO’s exhaust, which had the aroma of fried tofu from the veggie restaurants where I collected it, I immediately felt liberated from the petroleum industry and recalled Master’s words: “Stop all this smoke; invent something new!”

An Environmental Career Begins through Master’s Grace

With this first veggie powered vehicle completed, I decided to take a break from my teaching job at a local college and began promoting vegetable oil engine conversions full time. My first step was to contact local colleges, health oriented businesses and environmental organizations asking if they would like to hear a talk on vegetable oil fuels and their ecological and health benefits. I soon got many positive responses to my inquiries and was asked to speak at meetings of the Sierra Club, the Green Party, EarthSave International and other groups, and at various colleges and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. These talks reaped numerous sales leads for my business, and since my own mechanical skills are limited, I prayed to Master for help in finding a mechanic’s shop to perform the WVO conversions.

Then, as I was picking up WVO at an initiate-run restaurant in Huntington Beach, CA, a passerby with a diesel car asked about my veggie powered station wagon, whose windows have signs reading “Powered by Vegetable Oil.” The man also referred me to his mechanic, who quickly took an interest in doing the veggie oil conversions, and so my prayers were answered. Next I was able to easily find all the necessary parts for the conversions from local suppliers, or have them made at welding and machine shops located within walking distance of the shop where the conversions are done! Also, I quickly acquired all the equipment needed to set up a filtering operation in my garage to supply myself and my clients with clean WVO, and my business was off and running.

Conclusion

All of these auspicious arrangements seemed too good to be true, but after practicing the Quan Yin Method for over ten years I have come to realize that nothing is too amazing to achieve through Master’s help. Currently, the company’s filtering plant is being expanded from my garage to a larger facility in a nearby commercial district. In light of the rapid speed with which the WVO conversion and filtering business has taken off and blossomed, I feel that Master’s power has been strongly influencing its growth, and hope that through Her loving aid the company can continue to serve humankind and benefit Earth’s environment.

Thank You, Master, for Your ever present grace and assistance, and to reiterate Your words, “We’ll do the best we can and hope the world will learn” so that our planet’s atmosphere will be fit for human habitation during the emerging Golden Age.

For more information on vegetable oil as a fuel for diesel engines, WVO fuel’s impact on the environment, the WVO conversion process, etc. please visit the following websites:
http://www.diesel2veg.com
http://www.greasecar.com
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html