Because the majority of places where the fuel is used don't have any local sources for the crops.
Apparently not. The difference in mileage between gasoline and normal diesel fuel hasn't prompted many to pay the additional cost for a diesel car as it is.
Getting 400 miles from home nad then having to pay to have your vehicle towed back home so you can refill it doesn't appeal to many.
There is no doubt that it is possible for "some parts" of the country. I doubt it can be done for large parts of the country though.
What effect does the economy of scale have when you have to truck the raw materials to those areas where the crops can't be grown locally vs. trucking the finished product?
Biodiesel conversion plants (even small ones) are refineries. Each and every one of them would require EPA approval to open and operate just as current diesel refineries require permits.
fishin wrote:There is a table listed here that goes through various crops and lists the typical production on a per acre basis.
Other questions must also be considered:
1. Which of these crops produce oil that is suitable for diesel fuel?
2. Which of the crops from #1 are too valuable as food or other-non fuel uses to be used as fuel?
3. Of the crops that are suitable as fuel crops which ones have the lowest productions costs in terms of money and thus would make an economically viable fuel source?
4. Of the crops that are suitable as fuel crops which ones have the lowest environmental impacts and thus make an ecologically viable fuel source?
5. Do all of the viable oil crops produce fuels that have the same efficiency?
I am fully aware of that. And it isn't an apples/oranges comparison. It is a recognition of the fact that 90% of the vehicles currently on the road burn gasoline.
Quote:Those vehicles will never be converted to biodiesel so you will never convince their owners to invest in biofuels if you don't provide some benefit to them directly.
If the economy were to go south, gasoline prices would be incentive enough. Just witness what happened to gas-guzzling cars in the 1970s.
But if 90% of the vehicles on the road now cannot use diesel/biodiesel, what makes you think the big oil companies, that are making huge profits with gas, would ever bother to invest in biofuel technology?
Quote:Biodiesel doesn't "get" anything. The mpg obtained is by the vehicle. The VW Jetta diesel conversions typically get 50mpg. A Ford F-350 gets 18-20 and a typical tractor trailer truck gets ~3-4 mpg All of them can (and have) run on biodiesel. So MPG is a poor measure of comparison.
No it is not. If biodiesel costs $x a gallon to make and you can get y miles to the gallon while ethanol costs $a a gallon to make and you can get b miles to the gallon, which fuel is more cost effective?
Quote:Both require more energy to produce than they create. The net loss in a corn -> ethanol conversion is ~29%. The net loss in soy -> biodiesel conversion is ~27%.
Are you counting the energy needed to grow the crops or just the energy needed to turn the finished crop into fuel? It know that it takes a good deal of heat to make corn warm enough for it to ferment into alcohol and then to remove the alcohol from the water via distillation. However, according to the episode of Dirty Jobs you only have to heat the biodiesel reagents to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I would assume that such modest heating could be accomplished with solar energy.
fishin wrote:Because the majority of places where the fuel is used don't have any local sources for the crops.
Assuming that additional crops are not planted where biodiesel is demanded.
Quote:Apparently not. The difference in mileage between gasoline and normal diesel fuel hasn't prompted many to pay the additional cost for a diesel car as it is.
Because diesel fuel is so much more efficient than gasoline is, diesel cars became rather popular in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Quote:Getting 400 miles from home and then having to pay to have your vehicle towed back home so you can refill it doesn't appeal to many.
Most people don't work 400 miles from home. Biodiesel would be OK for most people's everyday use. If you need to take a long road trip, rent a car or take a bus.
Quote:There is no doubt that it is possible for "some parts" of the country. I doubt it can be done for large parts of the country though.
In time.
Quote:What effect does the economy of scale have when you have to truck the raw materials to those areas where the crops can't be grown locally vs. trucking the finished product?
Don't we have to truck gasoline long distances because most parts of the country lack crude oil and/or refineries and/or tank farms? What would be the difference between petroleum products and vegetable oil?
Quote:Biodiesel conversion plants (even small ones) are refineries. Each and every one of them would require EPA approval to open and operate just as current diesel refineries require permits.
To my knowledge the EPA does not now regulate biodiesel production and I see no environmental reason why biodiesel production facilities would need EPA regulations. If you have specifics otherwise, give them. Furthermore, the federal government can only regulate interstate/international commerce. You'd be hard-pressed to say producing biodiesel for your own use or for sale strictly within your local community constitutes interstate/international commerce. The EPA likely would not have constitutional jurisdiction.
To valuable to whom? That's a relative question.
Most people would consider having to replace their vehicle to be a fairly large economic value.
Because there uis a huge commercial market for biodiesel if it can be produced cheaper than conventional diesel and heating fuels.
Yes, it is. Each diesel vehicle will get different mileage as will each vehicle running ethanol.
Those numbers came from a Uinv. Of Missouri WWW site that claimed to include the total production cost - growing, converting and transporting.
Converting waste veggie oil to biodiesel may only require 130 degree heat. (many of the kits use home-type hot water heaters so I'd assume that to be true) but that ignores the energy necessary to create the veggie oil to begin with.
It also ignores the energy and cost required to generate and transport the methanol and lye that have to be added to the veggie oil to do the conversion.
My understanding is that Rudolf Diesel ran his engine on peanut oil. His goal was to build an engine that farmers could fuel themselves with the crops they could grow.
And assuming there is space to plant those crops.
I did a quick calculation based on my own usage from when I lived in Maine.
"Popular" is a relative term. I doubt the percentage of diesels has ever exceeded 10% of the passenger vehicle market.
*nods* Sure. I'll bet a lot of people are going to pack up the family and take a bus to go on vacation.
Only if you wipe out half the population. We aren't going to gain much landmass anywhere to grow more crops on.
There wouldn't be much difference at all.
But that sort of defeats you "local" argument doesn't it? The current cost is based on those large corporations that you hate so much doing the transporting.
Well... your knowledge is wrong. "Section 211 of the Clean Air Act provides EPA with the authority to regulate fuels and fuel additives in order to obtain information about emissions and health effects related to fuels and their additives, and where appropriate to reduce the risk to public health from exposure to their emissions."
The moment it starts being sold publicly however, you've opened it up to being used by commercial vehicles.
And then there are the state level environmental agencies that are also going to jump into the regulatory game and they don't have to worry about the Federal Constitution.
Quote:Most people would consider having to replace their vehicle to be a fairly large economic value.
Such a large scale replacement of vehicles wouldn't be outside of this country's living experience. When the OPEC oil embargo hit in the early 1970s my mother as a bookkeeper for a Pontiac dealership. The people that worked at the dealership had a running pool betting on how many Cadilacs they would find the next morning parked on the lot with the keys locked inside. If the cars were placed end-to-end they would have reached from the dealership to the GMAC office a few blocks away. It is entirely conceivable that the cost of gasoline-based fuels can increase so much that most Americans would make wholesale changes in their lifestyles.
Because there uis a huge commercial market for biodiesel if it can be produced cheaper than conventional diesel and heating fuels.
Quote:Yes, it is. Each diesel vehicle will get different mileage as will each vehicle running ethanol.
Thus you would use a standard model vehicle for comparison purposes.
Quote:Those numbers came from a Uinv. Of Missouri WWW site that claimed to include the total production cost - growing, converting and transporting.
Can you provide a link to this study?
Quote:It also ignores the energy and cost required to generate and transport the methanol and lye that have to be added to the veggie oil to do the conversion.
As opposed to the energy needed to transport the yeast and sugar(?) needed to turn corn into ethanol?
fishin wrote:And assuming there is space to plant those crops.
Farmland that is currently in land banks, where the farmer collects a government check for growing nothing in order to save the soil, could be brought into production. Since soybeans (and peanuts) produce their own nitrogen fertilizer, growing them is actually good for the soil.
Quote:I did a quick calculation based on my own usage from when I lived in Maine.
I am not aware that you can grow soybeans in Maine, so what are you basing your production data on? I would assume that your chart from http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html is based on idealized growing conditions. The source itself says that crop yields can vary widely. If you want to rely on localized production farmers would naturally concentrate on the crops that are most suitable for their local climate and soil conditions.
Quote:*nods* Sure. I'll bet a lot of people are going to pack up the family and take a bus to go on vacation.
Ever heard of Greyhound? You cannot judge the demand for a certain type of vehicle based solely on vacation travel. A family's daily commute is far more important.
Quote:Only if you wipe out half the population. We aren't going to gain much landmass anywhere to grow more crops on.
And we likely do not fully utilize all of the farmland that we do have let alone the empty land that is not located on farms. At 48 gallons of diesel fuel to the acre for soybeans and 40 miles to the gallon I could grow enough soy on my ¾ acre urban lot to drive 1440 miles a year (or 3300 miles a year if I grew peanuts). My neighbor's lot is about a half acre and I have 2 empty lots on the other side of me that likely have 1.5 to 2 acres between them. Put all of this space together and you can drive for 5000 miles on the soy that could be grown. This would be maybe 5 months worth of local driving.
Quote:There wouldn't be much difference at all.
Then what are you complaining about?
But that sort of defeats you "local" argument doesn't it? The current cost is based on those large corporations that you hate so much doing the transporting.
Quote:Well... your knowledge is wrong. "Section 211 of the Clean Air Act provides EPA with the authority to regulate fuels and fuel additives in order to obtain information about emissions and health effects related to fuels and their additives, and where appropriate to reduce the risk to public health from exposure to their emissions."
Unless harmless biodiesel exhaust is actually air pollution (which can travel to other states) a purely localized biodiesel production could not be regulated by the federal government because the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over a state's internal commerce.
Quote:And then there are the state level environmental agencies that are also going to jump into the regulatory game and they don't have to worry about the Federal Constitution.
They've got to worry about voters who want cheap fuel, however.
Does anyone know how much farmland would be needed to grow enough oil crops to meet the nation's auto fuel demands if vegetable oil (straight from the farm; not recycled from kitchens) were the only auto fuel we used?
That's funny. I happen to have been working in a gas station during the OPEC oil embargo and pretty clearly recall filling those cars with gas every day.
But the OPEC oil embargo issues had little to do with the cost of gas so it's hardly an apt example.
