TINKER AIR FORCE BASE.

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- When you ne gas, do you at any time think of pouring sunflower embryo s into your tank?

Don't examine it unless you're driving the same of 700 diesel-powered vehicles at Tinker Air Force Base. Drivers there don't actually pour sunflower germs into gas tanks, but they do use a mixture of vegetable oil and seneca oil diesel, called bio-diesel, to power the entire diesel creek at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center

on using bio-diesel, Tinker lessens its reliance onward Middle East oil and saves the environment from pollutants. The switch also falls below a 1992 congressional energy policy that tasked the Air Force, along with other federal agencies, to take the lead in finding ways to contract the nation's dependence on mineral oil and improve air quality.

Cars, barters and boats with diesel engines can use bio-diesel, a mix of 80 percent rock oil diesel and 20 percent vegetable oil, called B-20

The oil can be derived from sunflowers, sesame, pecans and other nut or basically any oil-producing plant. Recycl cooking oil, fats and vegetable oils can also be thrown into the mix. If french simmer oil is used, the exhaust perfumes like a fast-food restaurant. If recycl popcorn oil is used, it have an odors like a movie theater.

"We can't take an account of the difference," Brion Ockenfels said about the performance of the bio-diesel they've been using since 2002 "The nice thing about it is just by way of changing fuel we have a 20 percent reduction in emissions. What's unruffled better is that we didn't have to make any modifications to our engines one time we switched to bio-diesel," added the center's environmental public affairs officer.

He said one people were leery of trying the alternative material for burning but because they have now to discover a side result concerns vanished. Tinker officials trust the firing so much they use it in their ambulances and fire trucks

A major advantage is that it can be used in existing diesel engines and fuel-injection equipment with no modifications and without negative impact to operating performance.

The alternative combustibles is also nontoxic, biodegradable and doesn't add significantly to the greenhouse gas accumulation associated with stone oil fuels.

Another bio-diesel benefit is the oil acts as an engine lubricant, extending the engine's life. Vegetable oil also cleans injectors, firing pumps and fuel lines. Ockenfel said he's uniform getting reports from drivers that their traffics are getting quicker acceleration because of the fuel's cleansing capabilities.

"It's a combustible matter whose time has come," Ockenfel said.

It may hale like a throwback from the 1960 however flower power is back, and it scents like french fries.

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