BioDiesel ...a fuel that "really cooks"!

ikendu

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BioDiesel ...a fuel that \"really cooks\"!

We've already invented a liquid fuel that is home grown in the USA and can partly be supplied from used cooking oil (that now usually goes into landfills).

Much of this is from a post that I made in reply to another topic on the forum...but I felt it deserved its own thread!

The USDA did a study on how much energy it took to create home grown fuel for how much you get out. The results are:

Ethanol....1 to 1.25 (get 1.25 out for every one put in)
BioDiesel..1 to 3.20 <--- clear winner!

Diesels are also inherently more efficient than gasoline engines because they operate at higher temperatures and pressures for the combustion cycle. You also get better "mileage" out of diesel because it packs more energy (more energy dense) per gallon than gasoline.

My 2003 VW Golf TDI (Turbo Diesel Injected) is EPA rated at 49 mpg highway.

A renewable fuel like BioDiesel puts HUGELY LESS CO2 into the air than petroleum powered vehicle because the plants (like soybeans) absorb C02 as they grow and then release it later when the oil is burned...only to be reabsorbed into other plants when the growth cycle is repeated. BioDiesel consumes some Methanol in the process of changing soy oil into SoyDiesel...so it is not a 100% no CO2 cycle, more like 78% less C02 (pretty good huh?!).

BioDiesel also lubricates the fuel injector pumps better than dino diesel so the engines last longer (some report 300,000 mile life!).

The story on emissions:

Diesels produce hugely less amounts of all pollutants except for two; NOx and particulates. NOx is associated with a fuel combining with oxygen. Nitrogen is 70% of our atmosphere, so...it is there too and when present during high energy combustion also combines with oxygen into NOx. The higher the pressures and temperature (diesel /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif), the more NOx. NOx is a contributer to smog. To clean up the NOx, you need a catalytic converter (like gas cars already have).

Here's the rub, sulfer will destroy the catalytic converter's ability to clean up the NOx. The standards for sulfer content in diesel fuel sold in the U.S. are some of the worst in the world. By law, the sulfer content of diesel fuel by 2006 needs to be about 10 times lower than it is today. Once we have the low sulfer diesel fuel, we can use catalytic converters on diesels just like we do on gas cars. In fact, a number of sites say at that point diesels will be overall WAY cleaner than gas cars.

BTW...there is no sulfer AT ALL in BioDiesel. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

So...there is this uncomfortable period until 2006 when low sulfer diesel fuel is mandated and the sales of diesel cars is unclear for that time. Although, VW has already announced a new diesel engine ("PD") for the Passat for 2004. So...(like Mark Twain), the reports of the diesel's demise may be a bit exaggerated!

As far as the amount of crop land needed for our fuel use, we import about 50% of our needs from foreign sources (Mexico, Venezuela, North Sea (Britain), Middle East, etc.). About 25% points of that come from the Middle East (hence commanding the attention of our gov't for decades).

So...at least for the U.S., we need to displace about half of our consumption of oil to stop importing.

A Minnesota agriculture site estimated that if all of its soybeans were crushed into oil and converted to BioDiesel, it would fill about 50% of that state's need for diesel. You can get about 49 gallons of BioDiesel per acre of soybeans (plus...you still get a lot of soy protein for animal feeds or other foods). Other oil seed crops (like rape seed @ 127 gal/acre) are more than double of that. I figured my 20,000 miles/yr of driving would require about 8 acres of soybeans just for me. At the moment, there are millions of gallons of soy oil that are "surplus" every year, so for a while...having enough is not a problem. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Later, if this REALLY catches on, maybe we can switch to those other higher yielding crops. There is even a plant that grows in the desert or salty soils that gives a high oil yield (jojoba nut...194 gal/acre).

Actually, I find this pretty exciting! (maybe you can tell /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif)

We might actually be able to get away from the spectre of our carbon based fuels "running out" and get on to a completely sustainable, renewable (and clean) source of fuel that we can grow what we need! No more ocean going super tankers (BTW...BioDiesel is also completely bio-degradeable and hugely safer to transport, it is after all, vegetable oil...one guy that runs a BioDiesel Co-op in CA drank some just to show how safe it was!), no more oil spills,....and maybe, just maybe, WAY less pressure to have wars and de-stabilize middle eastern gov'ts so we can ensure the continued flow of cheap petroleum to keep our cars and our economy humming.

I gotta tell ya, that seems like a goal worth supporting to me!

So...I got my diesel, and I will run BioDiesel (even though, at this early stage it costs more than dino diesel...$2.50/gal instead of $1.77 for dino diesel). It is starting to come down...it used to be $3/gal. But...it is a real, actual renewable fuel that you can burn RIGHT NOW. Not something we might have to wait 10 or 15 or 20 years into the future to be able to have.

BTW...Cedar Rapids, Iowa has been running a 20% BioDiesel mix in its buses downtown now for over 2 years...for the cleaner burning aspect.

Links:

Veterans of Foreign Wars site linking terrorism to foreign oil

Do diesels have a future?

The "Veggie Van" making BioDiesel out of used restaurant fryer oil ..."free" fuel!

BioDiesel.Org ...the whole BioDiesel story

VW TDI Club ...forum all about the VWs you can buy...and using BioDiesel in them
 

DieselDave

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Ikendu, I am starting to get a little interest in Biodiesel. I just sold a diesel Ford Van to a guy in CA. He says he will run it on Biodiesel. He has been running his Mercedes on Biodiesel for a couple of years. He claims he makes his own for under $1 a gallon.
 

ikendu

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

On one of the forums I have been researching...a guy claims to be making his own BioDiesel for 40 cents/gallon (from used fryer oil). He makes a batch once every two weeks, says he hasn't been to a gas pump for like 2 years.
 

DieselDave

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Ikendu, My guy actually claimed he is making it for under 50 cents a gallon but I didn't want to post that and start a rumor. I thought it sounded too cheap so I said under $1. Couldn't be the same guy could it?
 

Tomas

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

I only caught the end of this story on one of the local TV stations, but seems there's a guy in this area who has made a deal with one of the local chains that uses a bunch of fryer oil: He picks it up from them no-charge (saves them some hassle in trying to re-cycle) and then just filters it in his garage and runs his small truck on it.

His only complaint is that his truck smells like doughnuts ...

Sounds good to me if true ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

tomsig03.gif


-= MICROSOFT FREE ZONE =-
 

Albany Tom

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

I won't say this is a bad technology, but consider:

On the CO2 bit - CO2 is produced by burning a hydrocarbon fuel. That CO2 is absorbed by the plants used to make the fuel doesn't mean that the fuel creates less CO2. This would only be a legitimate part of the equation if the land being used for the fuel currently doesn't have any plants on it. It's possible or even likely that the conversion of non farm land to soy land could *reduce* the absorption of CO2 compared to the plant life that was there before.

Land - Our planet is burning up wilderness just as fast as it's burning up oil. The loss of wilderness area to farming screws up biodiversity.

Genetics - A nasty part of the farm industry, especially the US farm industry, is the concept that screwing around with genetics in plants is a good thing. Somehow I have a tough time believing that food crops that kill butterflies are safe for people. I trust ADM way less than the oil companies on this one...we already know oil products are carcinogens.

cats - Just talked to a guy working at a Mack dealership. He's claiming their new trucks are coming in with catalytic converters on them, and although very hot, they run fine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a good idea. I just have trouble believing the "supermarket to the world" has any interest in anything besides money.
 

ikendu

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Albany Tom said: I just have trouble believing the "supermarket to the world" has any interest in anything besides money

Yes. I won't say that there are no companies that are motivated by "doing what is best"...but it seems to me that there are almost no companies like that.

On CO2...we are presently adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a rate that isn't being absorbed by plants...the CO2 is building up and creating a greenhouse effect which many believe causes unpredictable climate swings. When you burn a plant based fuel, you are causing less build up than mining petroleum from the ground and simply adding to the CO2 load in the atmosphere.

Land...to use BioDiesel today, no extra plants need be planted. So far we are using only 10% of the surplus soybean oil (I'm still researching what actually happens to the other 90%). If we ever do use up all of the surplus, there are plants like rape seed and mustard seed that when planted on the same exact land as soybeans, more than double oil production (soy=49 gal/acre; rape seen=129 gal/acre). There are research projects on using algae for BioDiesel (grown in shallow ponds and using crop land run off or manure to fuel the growth of the algae). Also...there are crops like the jojoba nut (already cultivated in the U.S. southwest for cosmetics) that grows on semi-arid land unsuitable for other crops. It produces 198 gal/acre of BioDiesel. Finally, there are additional millions of gallons of used fryer oil now being put into landfills that could be recycled into BioDiesel. So...I don't think we need to worry about cutting down the rain forest for BioDiesel for quite a while...maybe never.

Genetics...I won't disagree that tinkering with plant genetics must be handled with extreme caution. However, BioDiesel requires no such tinkering. It can be produced from the same non-engineered seeds we have used for centuries. We'll have the BioGenetics issue whether we have BioDiesel or not.

Albany Tom, I'm glad to see people "thinking ahead" on these issues. If more people had "thought ahead" on nuclear power, maybe we would have figured out what to do with the highly toxic waste before we created tons of it.
 

CNC Dan

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

[ QUOTE ]
Albany Tom said:
I won't say this is a bad technology, but consider:

On the CO2 bit - CO2 is produced by burning a hydrocarbon fuel. That CO2 is absorbed by the plants used to make the fuel doesn't mean that the fuel creates less CO2. This would only be a legitimate part of the equation if the land being used for the fuel currently doesn't have any plants on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not so sure that's right.

I think that plants only take in a lot of CO2 when they are growing, once they are grown less is taken in. So a forest that is mature would be taking in some CO2, but a field that is growing, then cut down and grows again may take in much more CO2. And when you consider that oil's CO2 was stored up over a very long time, but released quickly, we are better off with bio-fuels.
 

ikendu

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

DieselDave said:...Ikendu, My guy actually claimed he is making it for under 50 cents a gallon

Dave, here is a post that talks about making BioDiesel for 40 cents a gallon (by Joe_M)
(and NO imported oil... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif)
 

EMPOWERTORCH

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Our local petrol station has just started selling Bio Diesel, but only on its "car" pump, the lorries still fil up with regular mineral diesel.
It appears that at the moment, lorry engines cannot use it at the moment.
In Sweden (in Linkoping, anyway) the buses run on "Bio Gas" and they make great claims about thier "Biogasbuss" being good for the environmet. The result... Linkoping's air is extremely clean.
Back home in England, there are several enterprises involved in making fuel out of used chip shop oils. A recent motoring programme even showed someone running his lorry off recycled chip oil; he didn't want to be identified because all motor fuels carry a heavy tax and he was strictly operating his lorry illegally. The result was a very clean-running lorry.
 

highlandsun

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

re: CO2 - come on, this is a no-brainer. On the one hand, you have dinosaur-blood - hydrocarbons that have been locked up for millions of years, suddenly being released into the atmosphere, vs biofuels where the hydrocarbons being released were only recently taken out of the atmosphere to begin with.

By the way, living plants release CO2 at night. Like most other life forms they undergo respiration to release energy. A plant's age has little to do with it - in sunlight it converts CO2 + water into sugar. At night it "burns" the sugar to sustain itself, releasing CO2 + water.

With the bio fuels approach, you can maintain a net 0 balance. Also, in between the time the plant is harvested and the fuel is burned, there's a net increase in O2 in the atmosphere. A nice thing, giving us an easier time of breathing and making the fuel combust more readily when its time comes.
 

Albany Tom

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

It's not a no-brainer by any means. "Seems to be" doesn't mean "is".

Burning either kind of diesel releases CO2. The source of doesn't matter at this stage - they both create it.

The question is, does the crop grown for bio-fuel absorb more CO2 than whatever else may be growing there already. If you turn a Safeway parking lot into a field for bio-soy, then yes, you can get your net 0 CO2. If that field already had plant life on it, and it is already absorbing as much CO2 as bio-fuel already - in other words you have NOT changed the amount of CO2 being absorbed in the world because of your fuel switch - there isn't any gain.

If CNC Dan's thoughts are correct, then fields of bio-fuel "stuff" would absorb more CO2 than native forest. However, fields of anything are worse for the watershed, and local animal life, than native forest. Plus, most people like forests. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm not trying to put down bio-fuel, only suggest that there aren't any simple, easy answers to our fuel problems.
 

DieselDave

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

The little I have learned suggests bio-diesel is simple. It's a much simpler alternative than fuel cells or battery power but there is no way it's any type of energy panacea. Uh oh, that comment will bring Darell a running.

I talked to my bio-diesel guy today and he told me all VW diesels 1998 and never are set up to run on bio-diesel with no mods. The mods for others are a fuel heater and going to plastic or metal fuel lines. Rubber will break down over time with bio diesel. He also told me I could take 10 gallons of diesel add 10 gallons of filtered used cooking oil and pour it right into my tank as long as it doesn't get too cold where I live and it will run fine. It's a fascinating subject for a diesel freak like myself.
 

Darell

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

You rang Mr. Co-moderator? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Two comments on your last post Dave:

1. EVERYTHING is simpler than fuel cells.
2. Very few portable energy sources are more simple to use than batteries (can't think of any, actually). Show me your nearest diesel-powered flashlight, and I'll shut up. Maybe. Once you have your power stored in a battery, it really is a no-brainer to get it out. You don't need thousands of lubricated moving parts to put the power to the pavement. You need one. The spinning armature in the electric motor.

Yes, growing biodiesel is a thing of rare beauty. What could be more satisfying than squeezing a plant to fuel your car? But the complicated engine that it burns in is still something that needs to be kept tuned. The crank case oil still needs to be changed. And that engine still needs to be coupled to a transmission. And the thing still needs big radiators. All these things leak eventually, and they don't leak vegetable oil, unfortunately.

I love the idea of biodiesel, but the ICEs themselves still have most of the pitfalls of typical gassers.

I was gonna stay out of this thread because I didn't want to hop in an spew anything negative about what I consider to be an excellent alternative to fossil fuel. There are many positives about biodiesel engines... but simplicity as compared to batteries and electric motors isn't one of them.
 

Saaby

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

How about BioDiesel fired power plants to charge the EVs? Then the engines can always run at peak efficiency etc. etc.
 

ikendu

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Hmmmm. The root of this most recent addition to my BioDiesel thread looks to concern two topics:
1. The long term sustainability of the BioDiesel cycle
2. The best way of getting power to the pavement

1. Long term sustainability of the BioDiesel cycle

I believe that it does matter where the CO2 comes from for the fuel you burn. If we keep mining it out of the ground, it will lead to adding more CO2 to our atmsoshpere. We are simply adding more CO2 than the plants can absorb. I've seen it said that most of the Oxygen/CO2 cycle is actually maintained by our oceans (plankton and algae). I'm not really an expert here but I'll share what I've read.

If it isn't so terribly clear, one part does seem clear. If I grow a plant that starts with nothing but "raw" ingrediants like soil minerals, water, and CO2 then put it all together using the Sun to combine these materials into a plant (and its seeds), I end up with material where nothing is added but the energy from the sun. If I then squeeze out the oil and process it into BioDiesel which I burn in an ICE it seems to me that I haven't added anyting to our environment when I regrow the plant. If I find anything more definitive on this aspect...I'll come back and post it on the CPF.

In the short term, there is 200-300 million gallons of surplus soy oil that is already grown that can be converted to soy diesel right now. Last year we converted about 20 million gallons of that. I've seen it estimated that there are billions (still looking for more definitive figures on this) of Waste Vegetable Oil that ends up in our landfills every year. Seems a shame to waste an energy source plus burning it for BioDiesel is probably better than letting it seep into our ground water. If I find more on this I'll post that too.

Part of the neat thing about BioDiesel is the variety of feed stocks that it can use:
Soybeans......49 gal/acre
Rapeseed.....129 gal/acre
Jojoba nut...198 gal/acre (grows in semi-arid, can use salty water)
Algae........200+ gal/acre (still reading about this)
Plus WVO recycling

Also, we don't import it or move it around the world's oceans in giant super tankers that sometimes hit reefs or have other accidents leaking crude oil all over somebody's nice shoreline thus ruining beaches for years. If we ever did move it around like this, you'd be moving vegetable oil which is hugely more environmentally safe.

Actually, I don't think I've done such a great job with this part of the post. Sorry...I'm still researching the topic and can only share what I know with whatever writing skills I can bring to the table.

2. Best way of getting power to the pavement

I think Darell's got a pretty good take on this issue. Electric motors are pretty darn compelling for this part. They are simple to build and maintain, they provide excellent torque characteristics (max "power" right off the line) and they have a built in ability to recover energy during braking (regenerative braking) that puts back some of the energy you used to get up to speed. When it is sitting in traffic...no energy used at all. It is quiet and smooth with no emissions at time of use. Look how Darell's EV1 has turned him into a religious fanatic for electic power...the proof is in the pudding.

The problem comes when you consider how to power these engines. Liquid fuels have a very high energy density. 2 gallons of BioDiesel will take me about 100 miles and that doesn't weigh much. That's about the range of Darell's EV1 and I imagine the batteries weigh more then 2 gallons of fuel. To extend range, you could tow a little trailer with a liquid fueled generator (prototypes are already running around). I/we could go on and on about this part of the topic.

Heck, electricity can totally be produced from different "feedstocks"; wind, sun, geothermal, tides, coal, gas, nuclear, oil...on and on. We even have an already built "distribution infrastructure" (massive grids of wires running just about everywhere).

I've been interested/excited about electric drive for years! The bottom line for me has always been this...can I buy one at a reasonable price and have it serviced locally by someone that has experience from doing it all the time? So far...I haven't been able to do this for a variety of reasons. So...for the time being, I'm researching and actually doing BioDiesel.

Maybe the two technologies will finally meet up with an electric drive car with some pure electric range but with a diesel/hybrid generator to extend the range. San Diego State University built just such a car with "off the shelf" parts as a project; 80 mpg Enigma EV/diesel hybrid car
 

Darell

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

[ QUOTE ]
ikendu said:
Liquid fuels have a very high energy density. 2 gallons of BioDiesel will take me about 100 miles and that doesn't weigh much. That's about the range of Darell's EV1 and I imagine the batteries weigh more then 2 gallons of fuel.

[/ QUOTE ]
Quite true. Unfortunately this is one of those "manufactured" limits of EVs. Batteries exist TODAY that are 2x as energy dense as those used in the most modern production EVs. For 15 years, we've had the technology to charge in about 15 what today takes us about six hours. It just isn't being made available. Yes, we're being hobbled.

I trying as hard as I can to stay on topic here! Really I am. I don't mean to take anything away from biodiesel - I just couldn't swallow how "complicated" batteries were for a vehicle power source.

[ QUOTE ]

Maybe the two technologies will finally meet up with an electric drive car with some pure electric range but with a diesel/hybrid generator to extend the range.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've certainly got my fingers crossed! As far as I'm concerned, this IS the answer for now.
 

Moat

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

On one hand, the argument of the "closed loop" CO2/O2 exchange in using Biodiesel makes perfect intuitive sense. On the other hand, the argument of converting current living plant acreage to the growth of Biodiesel plants adding up to NO net improvement in the CO2/O2 imbalance, makes sense as well. My fearful suspicion is simply a matter of the almost inconcievable amounts of hydrocarbon fuels the world relies on daily, and the possibility that there is no where near the acreage available on Earth to come close to meeting that demand. Too many people using too much fuel. All of the worlds greenery has, for decades, been apparently unable to keep up with human CO2 output, and there is only so much greenery, after all. Greenery that's only declined over time, as populations have continued to increase.

I wonder if there have been any studies along these lines - Boidiesel/acreage/fuel demand/CO2 cycle? Would the sea algae production of Biodiesel be a possible grand scale alternative? Hmm.....

If people would just stop having kids for, say, 50-60 years, whittling the world population down to about 10% of what it is now, all of us old folks left could be happily driving our Biodiesel powered TDI's perpetually into peaceful un-inhabited, un-developed, un-polluted and wildly overgrown sunsets! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Dang it - thats MY hope, anyway. Until then, lets keep lookin'.....

(Ok, ok - "boo,hiss..." - like Michael Moore stepping down from HIS soapbox...)

Ikendu/Brock - if you can, please give us a report on how the TDI operates on Bio, when you finally take the plunge.

Bob
 

ikendu

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Re: BioDiesel ...a fuel that

Moat5606 said:I wonder if there have been any studies along these lines - Boidiesel/acreage/fuel demand/CO2 cycle? Would the sea algae production of Biodiesel be a possible grand scale alternative?

There is a discussion on the VW TDI forum about land needed for algae production of BioDiesel .

Basically it says that 11,000 square miles of algae farms would replace ALL of the gasoline and diesel used in the U.S. today. That's less than 10% of the area of the Sonora desert in the southwestern US. I can't vouch for the accuracy of those figures...but it is one person's view of this issue.
 
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