By Hilary Burke
Sun Apr 1, 6:32 PM ET
 USHUAIA, Argentina (Reuters) - When the squat, red
firetruck, smelling of greasy french fries, reached the literal
end of the road, two young Americans jumped out and gave each
other "high fives."
Nine months after they set off from Alaska to spread the
gospel of biofuels, Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt completed their
journey on Sunday at the end of Highway 3, which dead-ends at
the southern tip of South America.
Along the way, the twenty-something buddies made hundreds
of stops on two continents to ask for people's used frying oil
and animal fat, which powered their truck.
"What do people at the restaurants say when you ask them
for the used oil? Do they think you're crazy?" Osvaldo
Colombero, a passerby, asked the men in Argentina's Tierra del
Fuego National Park.
"No, they think it's super funny," Bradt responded,
standing beside the small Japanese fire truck that covered
about 21,000 miles since July 2006.
The trip was part of the Oil and Water Project, created by
Warren and Bradt to raise awareness of biofuels while taking
them on a kayaking and surfing adventure through the Americas.
"People out in the world right now are starving for other
sources of energy. With the (high) prices of petroleum, I'd say
the economic benefits are astounding," Warren said. "People
need fuel for their lifestyles and this trip right here is just
an example of how we fuel our lifestyle."
The truck, baptized "Baby" by a Rastafarian in Belize, is
packed with tanks to clean the waste vegetable oil or lard and
turn it into fuel for its standard diesel engine.
In Alaska, the duo ran the truck on fish oil. In Mexico and
Central America, they used pig fat from the Chicharroneras --
stands that serve fried bits of pork.
They fueled up with palm oil in Colombia and Ecuador and
soy oil in Bolivia and Chile.
Along the way, they coordinated with U.S. embassies to
organize seminars for children and university students about
their trip and the use of biofuels.
The idea is to find alternatives to burning fossil fuels,
which release gases like carbon dioxide that are linked to
global warming.
The United States, the world's biggest emitter of such
gases, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, which binds most
industrialized nations to cut harmful emissions.
"We're trying to set an example of maybe how Americans
should behave and how our country should act, and how we as a
nation should provide a role model for the rest of the world to
use alternative fuels," Bradt said.
The men performed cartwheels at the national park sign
which reads: "Alaska 17,848 km." Warren grabbed a towel and
headed for the nearby bay, where he planned to skinny-dip.
"How do I feel being at the end of the world? Well, in all
honesty, it feels like just the beginning," he said.
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Organisers are desperate for the eccentric star to sign up to take part
in the 7 July event, aimed at raising awareness of environmental issues.
