CLEMSON UNIVERSITY — Running your car on leftover cooking grease or stopping at the nearby hydrogen station to fill up before a weekend-trip may seem remote to the average driver.

But as the cost of gasoline continues to skyrocket, ideas once thought futuristic are closer than you think.

Researches at Clemson University and across the country in the fields of chemistry, biology and engineering, are working to perfect inexpensive and more efficient fuel sources from grass, peaches, vegetable oil, algae, hydrogen and even animal fats.

“The reality is with the price of oil going up as much as it has, it is stimulating the search for alternative fuel,” said Jim Goodwin, chairman of the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University.

“All of the things we are doing are things that can have an impact in the short term, let’s say five years,” he said. “This is not sort of high-in-the-sky research.”

Already popular in Europe, biodiesel is a non-petroleum-based fuel made from domestic, renewable resources such as vegetable oil.

Terry Walker, an associate professor of bioprocess engineering, focuses primarily on the biological aspects of ethanol and biodiesel research. His research is trying to perfect the use of resources like switch grass for fuel. He said switch grass is easy to grow and naturally abundant, unlike corn, another resource popular in biodiesel, which takes a lot of water and energy to make.

Chris Przirembel, vice president for research and economic development at Clemson, said switch grass would make a good fuel locally.

“Not only are we making alternative fuels, but we’re taking advantage of agriculture that’s available in South Carolina, particularly focusing on the Interstate 95corridor,” Przirembel said. The corridor refers to the route to Florence, where the university also has research under way.Walker said one area of research is to find different types of vegetable oil to use in cars.While excess cooking oil from local restaurants is becoming popular for some, oil from corn and other food sources also can be used. He said some research is trying to use sources other than edible plants, because of fears that the fuel industry would compete with food consumption.

Hybrid cars that run on biodiesel engines and electric motor power are also in the future, according to Walker. He said diesel engines are twice as efficient as gasoline engines.

“The efficiency of a biodiesel hybrid is about 45 percent efficient; a gasoline tank by itself is about 16 percent efficient,” Walker said. This means for every gallon of gas in a car, only 16 percent is actually used to drive the car. He said the rest of the gas is converted into heat and pollution.

“Once you understand that (efficiency), (diesel) cars will come here quickly,” Walker said. He said many of these solutions could occur in the next two years.

Steve Creager, professor of chemistry at Clemson, works on a research team to perfect fuel cells into something that will transport protons formed from hydrogen. He said it is a long-term vision of which Clemson researchers are a small player.

“We want to go to an energy infrastructure in which gasoline is not the energy carrier and use hydrogen as the carrier,” Creager said. “Instead of gas stations, you have hydrogen stations.”

According to Creager, hydrogen is a renewable source that solar energy will help fuel at the pump. Creager explained that energy from the sun would help fuel hydrogen protons in fuel tanks.

“I see this as something that will happen when market forces go down,” he said. “The price point to start changing our habits is $4. When it’s $20 people will really change. The world will then be desperate for an infrastructure.”

Goodwin predicts that although hydrogen-based fuel cells will become a more popular mode of transportation, it may still be 50 years down the road before a hydrogen fuel cell is economical for transportation.

David Bodde, senior fellow of Clemson’s Spiro Institute and university faculty member, agreed that it still could be 20 years before the nation sees a complete change in its transportation economy.

He predicts that a transition technology such as a hybrid electric vehicle will eventually lead the nation to a complete hydrogen economy or an all-electric economy.

“There is not a single solution, not a single silver bullet that we can shoot to make this problem go away,” Bodde said of the rising cost of fuel. “Each line of research and commercialization work to make a little piece of the energy problem better.”