vegetable oil for fuel history

The first known use of vegetable oil as fuel for a diesel engine was a demonstration of an engine built by the Otto company and designed to burn mineral oil, which was run off of pure peanut oil at the 1900 World's Fair. When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine, he designed it to run on peanut oil but it was soon discovered that it would operate on cheaper petroleum oil. In a 1912 presentation to the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers, he cited a number of efforts in this area and remarked, "The fact that fat oils from vegetable sources can be used may seem insignificant today, but such oils may perhaps become in course of time of the same importance as some natural mineral oils and the tar products are now."

Periodic petroleum shortages spurred research into vegetable oil as a diesel substitute during the 30s and 40s, and again in the 70s and early 80s when straight vegetable oil enjoyed its highest level of scientific interest. The 1970s also saw the formation of the first commercial enterprise to allow consumers to run straight vegetable oil in their automobiles, Elsbett of Germany. In the 1990s Bougainville conflict, islanders cut off from oil supplies due to a blockade used coconut oil to fuel their vehicles.

Academic research into straight vegetable oil fell off sharply in the 80s with falling petroleum prices and greater interest in biodiesel as an option that did not require extensive vehicle modifications.