In lieu of gas prices - biodiesel?

[SamSpade]

Has anyone heard of this before?

www.biodiesel.org

Apparently, it will already work in just about any diesel engine, and works about as well. The downside is, it's not a lot cheaper, but it soon MAY be, if prices keep climbing.

 

[aps45819]

The VW folks are big on converting their cars to run on BioD. Don't recall exactly what they had to do, you might be able to find more info by searching www.VWvortex.com

 

[Elle]

Yes, I've attended several talks on this subject. And locally many farmers have already been using the product for some time now. The cost is virtually no more than regular diesel. Of course it's better for the environment and you get better performance from the vehicle, you should change the filters after you run the first tank of bio b/c of the corrosion cleaning but other than that it should be an easy switch if you are thinking about it. I know most newer cars are coming with the option of gas or diesel (of course for $3,500 more) engines. In the long run the diesel engine is cheaper b/c you get better MPG from the diesel but a lot of people don't want to shell out the intial cost.

Here’s another site for more local research information http://www.mdsoy.com/

And as a side note many local governments are beginning to look into this as alternatives for their fleets, Queen Anne’s recently received a grant to do so.

 

[ericw]

If I remember correctly, cars converted to biodiesel get about 50% better mileage, and the cost of biodiesel was around $2.65/gallon.
I believe that Mr. Diesel meant for his engine to be run with peanut oil or corn oil to begin with, probably so farmers could make their own fuel for farm equipment, but the petroleum industry saw a chance for profit and invented a petroleum based diesel fuel.

 

[Ken King]

Saw a segment on the news the other day and I thought they said biodiesel was still about $.15 a gallon more then regular diesel. Once it costs the same or cheaper watch out for it to take off.

 

[Baja28]

Other than availablity, what's the downside to this??

 

[Ken King]

An irresistible urge to buy fries every few miles.

 

[jazz lady]

From the website:

Why should I use biodiesel?
Biodiesel is better for the environment because it is made from renewable resources and has lower emissions compared to petroleum diesel. It is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar. Since it is made in the USA from renewable resources such as soybeans, its use decreases our dependence on foreign oil and contributes to our own economy.

I'll have to read more on it, but at first blush it sounds like a very good idea.

 

[Baja28]

An irresistible urge to buy fries every few miles.

Hahahhaa....

 

[Fred Hoeck]

BioDiesel has been used for many years now in Germany for busses. Many towns collect used cooking oil to "recyc;e" as bio-diesel. But I have not seen it sold for use in private diesel cars. It has been only fleet use, ie public busses.

 

[Elle]

The military actually has provissions that it has to use bio-diesel in 10% of it's fleet if it is available, the problem is that locally it isn't available.

 

[terbear1225]

sounds interesting

btw, elle, love the sig.

 

[teverheart2002]

I was told about this, sounds like an interesting concept.

 

[marianne]

diesel-electric hybrids

I don't know much about bio/soy diesels but I have been keeping an eye on hybrid diesel-electric cars. I read many months ago that they're producing one in Europe that gets around 80MPG. Here's one such article about diesel hybrids:http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,66949,00.html
I've been holding out on getting a gas hybrid hoping they'll be coming out with a diesel hybrid in the next two or three years in the US. I don't know if major modifications are needed with soy diesels but the only thing that seems to be keeping diesel hybrids from hitting the streets (according to yet another article I had read) is automanufacturers don't think people want them because diesel gas stations can be hard to find.

 

[SamSpade]

We'd still need oil for manufacturing and a million other things - but I swear it would change the politics of the world if most NATIONS *grew* their automotive fuel.

 

[Larry Gude]

The downside is...

Other than availablity, what's the downside to this??

...the titanic amount of land that would have to be put in production to create enough emd product.

I'm not saying this is bad in and of itself but think about it; it has to be planted, soy beans or whatever, it has to be harvested, it has to be moved to processing, it has to be moved to market.

On a small scale, using up existing waste oils (biodiesel) is all well and good because it's already there but to produce it on a large scale may never make sense.

 

[Pete]

...the titanic amount of land that would have to be put in production to create enough emd product.

I'm not saying this is bad in and of itself but think about it; it has to be planted, soy beans or whatever, it has to be harvested, it has to be moved to processing, it has to be moved to market.

On a small scale, using up existing waste oils (biodiesel) is all well and good because it's already there but to produce it on a large scale may never make sense.

But Larry there are hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland sitting idle. when I was growing up everything where I lived was green. Some cash crops, some dedicated to growing feed for dairy cows. Farmers got too productive, prices continued to drop it became non profitable. First the government faced the milk glut. They paid dairy farmers all over to ship their cows to McDonalds and Wendy's processing plants and stop milking. Then came the rest. They paid farmers to let weeds grow. Thousands and thousands of acres in my old county in GA growing weeds. I am sure it is the same everywhere.

Basic economics says if there is a new demand for soybeans it would be lucrative again to grow them.

 

[SamSpade]

...the titanic amount of land that would have to be put in production to create enough emd product.

I'm not saying this is bad in and of itself but think about it; it has to be planted, soy beans or whatever, it has to be harvested, it has to be moved to processing, it has to be moved to market.

On a small scale, using up existing waste oils (biodiesel) is all well and good because it's already there but to produce it on a large scale may never make sense.

I think we could possibly meet the challenge, though.

Suppose we could bio-engineer soybeans so they could be harvested continually?

Suppose we could - as I've heard - make bio-fuels from algae? We could create them in the ocean.

Suppose it could still be manafactured in part from other wasted bio-mass?

Suppose other kinds of hybrids could be brought into play? Biodiesel is already mixable with petrol-diesel - suppose gas or electric hybrids could be invented?

Suppose higher efficiency engines could be produced because gas emissions wouldn't be much of a factor?

I'm aware of the fact that we consume a TREMENDOUS amount of energy from fossil fuel - in fact, when solar and wind was suggested as alternative energy sources, the analyses I read suggested you couldn't ever make enough panels to provide enough energy (although you COULD make sufficient consumer products for the home to offset energy costs).

I'm almost curious enough about this technology to get a small diesel just to see how it works - well, almost.

 

[Bonehead]

Just as an aside. You can actually run straight WVO (waste vegetable oli) in certain IDI (Indirect injection) engines as long as it is filtered down to a couple of microns, and heated to 160 degrees. The injectors just have to be able to atomize it correctly. Where do I get an IDI diesel engine car ?Mercedes 1979-1985 are very rugged solid cars and go for about 3-4K $ on E Bay and autotrader.com. Biodiesel requires filtering the oil, titration to figure out the free fatty acid content, mixing with methhydroxide, heating and reaction time (hours) then separation of the glycerine that is produced by the reaction and then washing to remove any left over impurities. This process is a little more than most folks want to fool with besides working with the toxic methhydroxide (racing fuel and lye).

 

[vraiblonde]

My Intellectual Morons guy makes the enlightening point that no scientist ever gets money for saying "everything is fine - let's leave it alone".

What's the big bugaboo about oil? It pollutes - big deal. So do cows and chickens. It's expensive - big deal. So is everything else in the world. I, personally, would like to see economists get off the oil kick and do something about the high cost of housing. No one was ever prevented from driving their car because the cost of gas went up 5 cents, but many people are prevented from buying a house because costs are out of proportion with wages.

Sam is right that it would change world politics - but is that necessarily a good thing? So we reduce our dependence on foreign oil, now what are Arab countries going to do for a living? They have very few other natural resources, nothing else to sell on the global market. Maybe their next big export will be sand, then we can all complain about our dependence on foreign sand. Liberals can get hysterical about Big Sand and environmentalists can chatter endlessly about sand mining's impact on the ecosystem.

Did you know that China produces one-third of the world's cement, which is the #1 building material world-wide? Let's talk about decreasing our dependence on foreign cement.