Chip fat saves digging deep for petrol money

Feeding the tank takes on a whole new meaning for Gary Baxter, whose car runs on chip fat.
And with premium grade petrol hitting a record $1.60 a litre, he's feeling quite chipper about his choice of alternative fuel.
For the past 14 months the Whangarei man's car has been powered by vegetable oil discarded by local takeaway shops - so if his chips were ever down, Mr Baxter could still afford to drive.
As well as turning a waste product into good use, it costs next to nothing to fill his tank.
His interest in alternative fuels began when he saw inevitable shortages and price rises for fossil fuels, and read a book called From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank.
But he never imagined less than two years later prices would hit today's all-time highs.
"There's that thing out at the refinery they call future fuels, but I think this is the way of the future."
Converting his 1992 1700cc station wagon to run on a dual-tank bio-diesel (fat) and vegetable oil system was a fairly easy task for the electrician.
At the time it cost about $1500 to do, but having learned from the experience he thinks he could do it again for much less.
Even that outlay has proved a drop in the tank considering he has since clocked up 3000km on free fuel.
The system works along similar lines to LPG tanks, with the more viscose bio-diesel - or fat - running the engine for the first couple of kilometres before Mr Baxter switches to vegetable oil. By that time the vege oil, heated by the engine, is hot enough to take over.
But there are down sides to running a car on chip fat - for instance, it tends to clog things up. Mr Baxter once spent three hours with a heat gun flushing out the pipes after the fat set.
The engine is a little hungrier on food-based rather than fossil fuels but he's never had to go into a takeaway shop and ask for two pieces of fish and a litre of cooking oil, either.
Caring about the planet - a major influence in his interest in alternative fuels - Mr Baxter had his car's exhaust emission analysed after the conversion and came away with an excellent result.
There is no law against such fuel conversions, and Mr Baxter's car is fully warranted.
He's not the only person in New Zealand to get a taste for chip-fat fuel. A Wellington man works fulltime at converting new four-wheel-drive vehicles into vegetable-oil burners.
But compared to the USA and Europe where vegetable oil and fat is a relatively common alternative fuel, here the business is still very small fry.
Petrol prices rose 3c on Thursday, with companies blaming the high cost of refined products.
The Automobile Association said the latest rise was disappointing with international oil prices easing.
Motoring policy manager Jayne Gale said it was hard to know how much the companies had absorbed of recent international refined petrol price rises and whether they needed the latest rises.
"But again at the refinery level, they're making quite a large profit on this bit of a windfall for them," Ms Gale said.
The four major oil companies - Mobil, BP, Shell and Caltex - owned most of the shares in the Marsden Pt refinery.
Motorists had limited options but anyone who did high mileage could look at the possibility of LPG conversion, and motorists needed to drive efficiently and try to make fewer trips, she said.
Those with low mileage requirements should do their sums carefully before deciding to sell a large car for one that was more efficient.