Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future

Greasy Rider tells the story of how the author and an old college buddy set out to drive across the United States in a 1985 Mercedes station wagon converted to run on used cooking oil. Along the way, they stop to meet with various biofuel experts and fellow grease-car enthusiasts, and also think up a number of ideas for other alternative energy-themed expeditions, which Melville then follows up and reports on between chapters of the road trip saga. (These include visiting, among other places, a Minnesota wind farm, Google headquarters, and Al Gore's house.) The writing style is breezy and fun, making the travelogue entertaining to read, and the more serious discussions of energy and the environment are clear and engaging. The book also show more manages to be optimistic and enthusiastic about alternative energy sources, including biofuels, without over-hyping them, instead taking a balanced (if not necessarily deep) look at the pros and cons of various technologies without ever getting preachy or sanctimoniously greener-than-thou.

Overall, I found it quite an enjoyable read. And, who knows? It might just inspire me to try and be a tiny bit greener, myself. show less

Take an Eastern liberal with no mechanical aptitude, pair him with a down-to-earth college friend who knows his way around an engine, and put them in a retooled Mercedes for an eight-day trip across the country while begging restaurants for fry-oil fuel -- and you'll have a laugh-aloud read that leaves you longing for French fries. Greg Melville & his pal Iggy travel from Burlington, VT to Berkeley, CA in the footsteps of cross-country driving pioneer H. Nelson Jackson, while searching for greener alternatives to everyday life. Not only do they glimpse Al Gore's Tennessee mansion and visit Fort Knox's geothermally-powered complex, they also encounter Hank in Nebraska (and his self-published Jesus screed), endure teeth-chattering cold as show more they climb the Rockies (the Mercedes' heat stops working when the car exceeds 50 mph), and discover another college pal is gay (his computer log-in is “Two Gay Guys”). Combined with side trips to Google, Dartmouth, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a wind-turbine farm, and the world's first green Wal-Mart, Melville delivers a funny and thought-provoking tale that not only splits your sides, but makes you ponder reducing your carbon footprint. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this lighthearted, conversational travelogue about two guys' 8-day journey across the country in a fry-oil-powered car and the educational errands they undertook to learn more about alternative energy sources and going green. The writing style resembled that of Bill Bryson, and it had the right blend of being informative and entertaining. I learned a lot and laughed a little. All in all, this is a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to learn more about going green.

Full review at The Book Lady's Blog

I was looking forward to reading this book to learn more about the cool idea of a car that runs on used vegetable oil instead of gasoline. I was thrilled to find that it was also a funny well-written travelogue of a road trip between two old friends. Throw in an ongoing quest to answer many other questions about alternative energy sources and sustainability, along with some good old US history sprinkled in, and you've got yourself a great read. The notes at the end cite the author's sources and where you can hit the net to find out more. I was very impressed with Melville's work and the smell of french fries will never be the same again.

The story of Greg Melville's cross-country trip with his college buddy Iggy in a vegetable oil powered 1985 Mercedes wagon, this is a funny story that sneaks in some important information about renewable energy and our green future along the way. It works because Melville doesn't take himself or his quest too seriously - thus avoiding the holier-than-thou trap that so many earnest books on the green movement fall into.

GREASY RIDER by Greg Melville
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
ISBN: 978-1-56512-595-7

Take two men, a 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon, a grease car conversion kit, and the first cross country automobile trip made by H. Nelson Jackson as inspiration, mix it all together and you have a funny, informative, and thought provoking look at the future energy independence of our nation.

One of the things I liked most about this book is that it did not preach any one environmental doctrine. There is never one answer to a problem as complex as the one facing our environment today. This book takes a good hard look at our attitudes and how they work to move us forward or hold as back in the “fossil fuel age”. Not only does it give us show more a very humorous look at two men on a cross country trip and what it takes for them to make it without relying on anything but used fry oil. It also gives us a beautiful snapshot of out vast country and the way one answer in one region most likely is not the answer in another.

It looks at different philosophies from a place of inquiry. Finding the merits of each idea and trying to find a common ground and complete understanding of what a particular environmental philosophy is trying to really say.

The book switches back and forth from the actual road trip memoir to specific tasks designed to learn more about different ways to become more energy efficient. I liked this on the level that everything in the book was very interesting to read. On another level however I sometimes found this distracting and seemed to slow down my reading progress. Overall the information throughout was great. At the end of the book a comprehensive list of sources is offered to learn more about what was discussed in the book.

I would suggest this book to anyone, period. We must make changes in the way we live. We can no longer live with the illusion that life can continue as it presently does at the rate that we are consuming our natural resources. The best thing about this book is that it puts many ideas into perspective and how all of the little pieces fit together. I hope readers will embrace this book for everything that it offers. The more we as citizens of the earth explore what is going on around us the better the outcome for all of us. show less

Greg Melville’s Greasy Rider describes the author’s effort at converting a 1985 Mercedes wagon to run on used fry grease from restaurants and driving it from Vermont to California. Encouraged by the prospect of locating free energy, Melville opts to operate his car exclusively on fry grease instead of biodiesel, which still contains a percentage of petroleum. As a test of the feasibility of this alternative fuel, Melville decides to emulate the cross-country trip of H. Nelson Jackson, who, as Melville says, was the first person to cross the country in a car running on petroleum. Relatively challenged by auto mechanics, however, Melville enlists the help of Iggy, his former college roommate, to help maintain the engine and to help show more fill the container in the trunk with waste restaurant grease.

Prompted by Iggy, who gives Melville various challenges or errands to discover more about green energy, the narrative is broken up by six of these errands, most of which occur after the initial trip and are included as addendums or side-trips, so to speak. These errands include research into Al Gore’s own 10,000 foot mansion to determine whether his house is heated and cooled with green energy; how a few Minnesota farmers are in the midst of making wind power profitable; how cellulosic ethanol, the conversion of plants into energy without using corn and without using the expensive distillation process currently employed to create ethanol, could, according to Lee Lynd, a professor at Dartmouth, significantly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels; a visit to Google’s headquarters where solar energy is generated and could, conceivably, power a portion of the buildings on the Google campus if the energy weren’t sold to the energy grid in that area; the creation of geothermal energy at Fort Knox; and a visit to a green Wal-Mart in Texas. These explorations reveal not only the hypocrisy of Al Gore but also the individual and corporate efforts at adopting green alternatives.

Often humorous because of Melville’s initial attempts at locating restaurant grease at fast food restaurants, the narrative describes the system that Melville and Iggy adopt to fill their fuel container. By the time that these two guys reach California, it is possible as a reader to smell the grease stored and emitted by this Mercedes, a smell which is so strong, Melville says, that every article of clothing he brought along for the trip became permeated with the smell. Coupled with this problem, the narrator finds it difficult to remain in such close quarters with his former college roommate, eventually exploding at what he considers as his friend’s irritating mannerisms.

While this narrative proves that it is possible to make a cross country trip on the grease gathered from restaurants, it also calls into question the viability of such an alternative to gasoline because of the potential run on restaurant grease if enough people converted their own cars to operate on the same alternative fuel. It may be possible to subsist on this fuel when driving locally if the car owner reserves a constant supply of this fuel supply. Should the restaurant close down, or once enough other people start clamoring for the same fuel, the possibility of relying exclusively on this free fuel becomes remote.

Ultimately, I would have liked seeing more exploration into alternative fuels and green energy. If the narrative were widened to include what’s being done elsewhere in the world and how the oil corporations have resisted pumping their billions into green energy, the book would have been more than a trip across the country, one containing the adventure of pumping restaurant grease, the difficulty of maintaining a lengthy car trip with another male, and side trips to consult other mavericks and other sites of green energy. show less