I know about the cost of crude oil surging in price due to the Iranian conflict, but can one use cooking oil (like the one used for fried foods, i.e. canola, sunflower or vegetable) work or will that just damage the engine? I’ve also heard about alcohol being able to start up vehicles depending if the alcohol content is of high concentration.
Yes It’s possible to build an engine that runs on those as fuel. We built an ethanol car for shell eco marathon at university.
No. Putting ethanol or vegetable oil in your car is probably not a good idea unless it was made with the intention of being able to run those fuels.
Long term I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have transport compete with food for limited area for production.