Click here to Donate to the Ian McFeron Band BioFuel Bus fund!

As a touring band, we burn thousands of gallons of fuel every year. On our first tour of the Western United States, we burned more than 1,000 gallons of gasoline, and handed over $3,000 of our hard earned money to oil companies. I quickly came to realize that as we continued to expand our touring base, a greater and greater percentage of our annual budget was being committed to the purchase of petroleum fuels, while we were pouring increasingly large amounts of carbon gas into the atmosphere. These were realities I couldn't live with ethically, and could not sustain financially.

Eager for a more ethical and sustainable solution, I spent the last two years reading up on fuel alternatives. It was through this research that I learned that a diesel engine (with a properly heated fuel tank, fuel lines, and fuel injectors) could run on straight vegetable oil. Different than biodiesel, straight vegetable oil that has been heated to 160¡F can be used as fuel in diesel engines without being chemically altered to lower the viscosity. I also learned that there was a company in Seattle called Frybrid that made custom, parallel fuel systems in which excess heat from the engine is used to lower the viscosity of vegetable oil so that it can be burned cleanly and efficiently as fuel.

In the Fall of 2007, we bought a 35' diesel RV and are now saving to have Frybrid fabricate and install a custom straight vegetable oil fuel system. Your contribution will help us on our way to a performing and recording career centered on environmental responsibility, and humanitarian ethics. Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you at a show!

Ian McFeron

When Rudolph Diesel initially invented the diesel engine in 1898, he built the engine to run on peanut oil stating, "The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture in the countries which use it."

Benefits:
Environmental
Vegetable oils burned as fuels are carbon neutral since the carbon released during the use of the fuel is reabsorbed and balanced by the carbon absorbed by new plant growth. Carbon neutral fuels lead to no net increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which means that global warming need not get any worse.

Political
Our addiction to fossil fuels and our seemingly insatiable thirst for them has prompted us to seek out oil reserves outside of the United States. Politicians are being bought, wars are being waged, and people are being murdered in order to supply the United States with the more than 860 million gallons of crude oil that it consumes every day.

Economical
The Rising price of petroleum fuels in recent years, combined with the fact that a national tour routed through every major city in the United States amounts to some 10,000 odd miles, hits the independent touring musician like a punch to the gut. Burning waste vegetable oils acquired for free from restaurants would allow us to save thousands of dollars every year, and would allow us to bring our music to audiences thousands of miles away.