BIODIESEL, Try it youll like it.

Biodiesel is made from oils or fats, which are hydrocarbons. Fresh soybean oil is most commonly used, although biodiesel can be made from mustard seed oil or waste vegetable oil (such as used oil from restaurant deep fryers which must be a joke surely). These hydrocarbons are filtered and mixed with an alcohol, such as methanol, and a catalyst , resulting in a chemical reaction whose major products are the biodiesel fuel and glycerol.

Soybeans-Energy required for fertilisers,irrigation,farm vehicles,pesticides,processing and transport to biodeisel plant.

Methanol must take energy to make and move.

How much glycerol is made and what use is it.

The US food system uses the same amount of energy as does France for all uses.20% for growing and 80% for transport,processing,packaging and marketing.

Would it not be better to attack that 80%?

I dont know a lot about Amish communities however it seems to me you are suggesting a similar lifestyle.

We went over this in page 2, whats yer point? That everything takes energy? well youre correct sir. Collecting fatty acids and esterifying them is easier than cracking crude.
There are many novel ways to esterify fatty acids many of these involve using landfill gases or biomethane .

Im talking about real biodiesel, not this 15% crap that Willie Nelson is hockin.
Fryer oil is a very big feedstock. If you followed the news of industrial chemistry youd know that waste products from one chemical production are often used as feedstock for another.

dadpad wrote about something I said-



I don't know anything about Amish communities either.I've heard of them.They're supposed to be a bit wierd but I wouldn't know.

I don't see where you get the connection from.

Maybe it's because you're an urban person.Urban is connected to all sorts of different ways than those a rural person is connected with.Jumping to conclusions quickly is a case in point.A rural person is more given to pondering. It would never enter my head to say that somebody was suggesting a similar lifestyle to that of some community.

No.I'm not really suggesting anything.Biodeisel might be the answer but when somebody sticks up an answer it should be questioned especially if there's going to be a big bet placed.

I love modern life.I'm all for improvements as long as that's what they are.But I just think we haven't learned to use this Aladdin's cave so good as we could do.And that's to do with attitudes.

I don't like the idea that somebody can pump a tank of gas with Willie Nelson's mush grinning from a sticker and drive somewhere daft thinking they are saving the flipperkink planet.They could spend that money on ladies jewelry and that's not very polluting and it has a pretty good effect and it's looks dinky.Or buy a good book which on reflection might be the better bet.What use is going somewhere daft.Either might save some juice.

Isn't examining a proposition what this type of thread does best if only so we can get a better idea of what our rulers have to negotiate?

If you notice spendi, I started this thread as a personal inquiry, (not a question about whether biodiesel could save the planet), and, I started it a few months before Bush's State of the Union.
Im still interested in "applied science" and manufacture of biodiesel .
Somehow, when the thread morphed into the availability of crude, my initial questions got lost in the shuffle.

Yeah-I know fm,but being interested is a long way short of investing in it. I just thought it might be useful in case anyone got carried away on a wave of enthusiasm and didn't look at it properly before putting money in.

I wouldn't put money into it as things stand but that doesn't mean I don't admire the entrepreneurial spirit in trying to make it work or that I don't wish to see it work.I would imagine it will have to be made to work at some point or go nuclear or cut the population or cut their expectations.The last two are areas I would look to first and even so only very tentatively.The Dow Jones has to be considered.

The world is divided into 2 kinds of people.
1those who take risks

2Those who stand around and wonder what just happened

fm-

Yes I know.

I've taken a few risks in my time don't worry, some few of which came off. I just wouldn't do this one. Is it not smelly and generally disagreeable.

Actually I do have an idea.There is some science which says that fat for food frying should only be heated up once.If you could get that out with words like "carcinogenic" and "vascular disease" in the spiel you could probably increase the availability of the raw material maybe ten-fold and you would probably find it easier to get a good fuel and the diners would be subsidising your product which is a deserved fate of people too lazy to cook their own food.

Farmerman, Can you conceive any longterm adverse effects of Biodiesel? Soil? Emissions? Price of food going up because everyone is growing corn?

I did not search through every page this may have been coverd.

Maybe the next energy will be a combo of wind, sun and corn?

P.S. Whats taking you so long? Tesla is watching.

And how much fertiliser and pesticide will be needed to make the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil or enough for about 70 minutes allowing for a portion to be wasted in run off.

Amigo- Were not doing this to solve any world problems, just to fire up a couple of trucks in my company's fleet. Yes there are a few obvious setbacks with biodiesel. It has fewer components of longer chain aliphatics that it actually cleans engines and fuel lines. This can be a negative on fuel connectors that count on a crud factor to keep em from leaking.
I believe the particulates are about as high as normal diesel. As far as making the amount of biodiesel for it to have an impact on agribusiness, farmers already are at the low end of the food chain as far as commodity prices. Making the value of soybeans or rape or other oil producing plants higher, will create a more demand for higher yield beans. We can double the output of products that use soil only as a holdfast. Soybeans , as a legume, can live anywhere and produce well if the trace elements are taken care of .

There are many farmers in this area who are trying their hands at biodiesel from waste oils and rendering (from hog operations) and some of the filtering being done isnt all that complete , weve been using a centrifuge process and it works far better. Getting the reaction complete is another factor of "home grown" small scale production. Efficiencies appear to increase with out put.Were just doing this on a "bucket scale' and to go to a pilot production, my CE colleague has been scouting around for a series of stainless tanks to use for equalization (make the mix more uniform than having each batch come out with different cetanes.
If we ever do go into a limited pilot production, we will come flat in collision with our townships zoning requirements , unless I move all the operations onto my farm and call it an agricultural enterprise.

spendius

Well, you dont have a need to run a fleet of diesel trucks and drill rig. We use many diesel appliances , like 30KW generators for generating power for resistivity surveys , and we have a field trailer for a rock testing lab. Biodiesel doesnt smell at all (were making b100 not the watered down b15 mix that WIllie sells).

I see.

Hey fm-

Do you think Amigo is revenue investigation officer with a nose for what country boys can get up to if you don't keep your eye on them?

You mean i'm not the only one parinoid about being watched on this thing?

No Amigo-

I'm not worried about being watched on this.

It was that cold "Issssseeeeee!" which reminded me of a tax inspector who wasn't sure whether to believe what I had told him.With a raised eyebrow.

They have teams of guys here who set up without warning on busy roads and pull over vehicles to test the stuff they have in the tanks.If what they find is unsatisfactory to their purposes you get whacked with a hefty fine.

To be on the roads you have to pay the appropriate taxes which is as it should be.Does that not apply in the USA?

only for interstate commerce, in those cases you are often required to get some fuel at a station in that state. We pay the taxes at the pump for fuels, If we make it ourselves, we are given a tax break in PA.

Hey Amigo, another thing about biodiesel 100 is that it contains no hydrocarbons such as benzene toluene or other environmentally significant organics. Itll degrade in the environment and can, if needed be used as a source of carbon in soil amendment

Sign me up. If Willie likes it it can't be too bad.

The men and countries that can see beyond the world of oil will be ahead of the rest. I say lets leave the rest behind if they have no vision.

It seems like this will work with all the combustion engines we already have so it's seem to be our best alternative to oil as we make our transition out of the age of oil. It's the next revolution. No?

I wonder if in 200 years there will be a war over corn with farmermans great grandson, a trillionaire owner of some corn corporation? And all you were trying to do was put a couple pickups on the road?

Amigo-

There are other consequences to a corn fuelled economy which I feel will preclude anyone becoming a millionaire never mind a trillionaire.

There are other visions.

biodiesel is made best from soybean and other oil producing plants. The stuff that we are experimenting with is all waste cooking oil and rendered fats.

Corn is best used for alcohol and the residue after alcohol is made is a high protein cattle feed, same with soybeans, it can be dried and used for feed after pressing .

Willie is not producing a true biodiesel, He is mixing 85% regular hydrocarbon rich petroleum distillate with only 15% soybean diesel. Thats pissin in the ocean.