Ponaganset High School teacher Ross McCurdy, right, and three students, from left, Zane Lewis, Wylie Smith, and Seth Keighley, are all smiles before they hit the road on Saturday en route to Los Angeles in a truck powered only by renewable biodiesel fuel.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

Ross McCurdy took the late afternoon call on Monday on his cell phone, somewhere outside of Oklahoma City, at a place called the Cherokee Trading Post.

He was eating a buffalo burger and some barbeque bison. “We all have cowboy hats. We’re loving the Midwest,” he said.

The “we” McCurdy was referring to were his three fellow travelers, Zane Lewis, 18, Wylie Smith, 17, and Seth Keighley, 17. The four were getting a late start on the day, admitted McCurdy, a science teacher at Ponaganset High School in Glocester.

Then again, covering five states and over 1,000 miles in two days (driving in shifts) would do that.

McCurdy and the three former and current Ponaganset students are making the 3,000-mile trek from Rhode Island to Los Angeles in a pickup truck fueled by biodiesel, a non-petroleum-based fuel made from vegetable oil.

Their goal is to drive the entire way –– coast to coast –– without refueling. The truck is loaded with 150 gallons of biodiesel, which is enough to make the trip out West, according to McCurdy.

The group is part of the Ponaganset Alternative Energy Team, and it is trying to raise awareness about the benefits of renewable resources such as biodiesel, which can be used by any diesel-fueled vehicle but burns cleaner and is therefore safer for the environment than regular diesel.

McCurdy and the team set out from the State House steps in Providence on Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. They cleared about 500 miles that first day, resting in the town of Clearfield, in central Pennsylvania.

On Sunday to Monday they covered Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. They didn’t call it a day until Monday at 9 p.m. McCurdy says the group is trying to make it as quick as possible to Los Angeles and is watching its fuel consumption.

The truck is using 99.9-percent biodiesel, which McCurdy acknowledges is not as fuel-efficient as regular diesel, but only marginally less. The tradeoff is that biodiesel releases virtually no sulfur, which when combined with oxygen in the air, causes acid rain. It is also locally made.

The biodiesel fueling their truck was made from used cooking oil and was donated by Newport Biodiesel Fuel in Newport and TH Malloy Biodiesel and Heat in Cumberland.

McCurdy says the group hopes to reach Los Angeles by Thursday, and then it’ll turn the truck around and make the return trip at a more leisurely pace. The group is filing regular reports from the road on its Web blog at biodieselpickup.blogspot.com.

McCurdy likes to say inspiration for the trip came from no one less than Charles Lindbergh, whose historic transcontinental flight from New York to Paris in 1927 showed aviation was a viable form of long-distance travel.

The group hopes the Ponaganset trip will show others that biodiesel can be a viable form of fuel, says McCurdy.

It’s the latest project to come out of the high school of just under 1,000 students that is focused on alternative forms of energy. McCurdy and his students have also developed projects ranging from a rock ‘n’ roll band that used fuel-cell power in its amplification systems and a Ford Model-T that runs on fuel cells.

Much of the group’s expenses –– including the truck –– are from grants, donations, and local sponsors.

The group received a $6,964 grant from the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources as well as $1,000 from AAA Southern New England.

The pickup, a 1997 GMC K3500, was donated by Con Edison Solutions, an energy-service provider based in White Plains, NY.

The company has been working with the Foster-Glocester Regional School District to make its buildings, particularly the new middle school and high school, more energy efficient.

McCurdy said the truck, which seats six, served as a utility truck in New York City and has only 64,000 miles on it. “The truck’s running great,” he said. “It’s a solid, heavy-duty truck.”

Hall’s Garage in Smithfield shored up the eight-foot-long pickup bed so it could handle the three biodiesel tanks mounted on it, and Greenville Collision in Johnston gave it a coat of white paint, all free of charge.

The group spent some of the grant money outfitting the truck with a CB radio, GPS navigation system, and a stereo. It also spent about $800 on a set of eye-catching chrome rims that it hoped would get passersby to sit up and take notice.

McCurdy said the ploy has worked, so far. The rims, from Tanury PVD in Lincoln, have a special titanium oxide finish that makes them shine purple, green and gold. “These are some seriously cool wheels,” he said.

Late yesterday, the truck was headed for Amarillo, Texas, en route to Albuquerque, N.M., as it makes its way deep into the deserts of the southwest, where the high temperature at the Arizona-California border on Monday was 112 degrees Fahrenheit.

McCurdy said the pickup doesn’t have air conditioning, so the crew plans to drive in the late afternoon hours into the evening. At least it has the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean and the beaches of Malibu to look forward to.

pmarcelo@projo.com