One of the charms of California’s central coast, at least if you ask yours truly, is that residents in places like Ventura County cannot be counted on to be either left-wing or right-wing; often, they turn out to be neither, or both, or some combination thereof.
One such Ventura County resident is a local hero named Joel Woolf, who has worked in Ventura County as a diesel mechanic for years, and considers himself a cowboy, but has become — to his own surprise — a person most folks would consider to be an environmentalist.
Woolf turned out to be the most colorful of speakers at a open forum for environmental solutions put on by the Green Party at a meeting room Wednesday night at Ventura’s library. He described how a few years ago he happened to read that the inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel, designed it to run…on peanut oil.
"A great big lightbulb went off in my head," Woolf recounted. He ran a test on an engine he was working on and discovered that with vegetable oil, "It didn’t just run, it ran great."
"There’s nothing wrong with the diesel engine," Woolf adds. "It’s what we’re putting in it!"
Three years later, Woolf has a business going in Upper Ojai that specializes in converting diesel engines to run on vegetable fuel — essentially, by adding a secondary fuel system. (He’s not a fan of biodiesel, believing that the chemical processes required to produce the fuel — especially lye — produces pollutants that outweigh its environmental pluses.)
"I’m not an activist, I’m not green, I’m just a cowboy who’s found something that works," adds Woolf.
Dang, wish I had a diesel engine to convert. If you do, give Woolf a call at Veg Powered Systems in Upper Ojai, 525-4515.
Kit Stolz 