Utilizing Bio-fuel Beyond Experimental Use 384
grumpyman writes "A C$14 million factory near Montreal started producing biodiesel fuel two weeks ago from the bones, innards and other parts of farm animals. At full capacity plant will produce 35 million liters (9.2 million U.S. gallons) of biodiesel a year, the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing 16,000 light trucks or 22,000 cars from the roads."
Experimental? (Score:5, Informative)
Just because no one the submitter knows uses biodiesel doesn't make biodiesel an "experimental" fuel.
Indiana State Fair & Biodiesel (Score:4, Informative)
There's a shuttle service of ca. 6-8 tractors towing two trams circling the entire grouds and they've been running biodiesel from local farmers for years.
I think there are plans for an "all natural" city in the northern part of the state, which will be limited to -E, biodisel, fuel cells, etc. due to switch over within the next year or two.
More Information on Biodiesel (Score:5, Informative)
First, biodiesel has a positive energy balance, to the tune of about 3.2 units out for every unit you put in. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf [nrel.gov]
Second, biodiesel is 78% carbon neutral with regard to greenhouse gas emissions (see previous pdf). That is because the majority of the carbon emitted when you burn a gallon of biodiesel was captured from the atmosphere when you grew the plant to make the vegetable oil. However, the methanol used to make the biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester) is made from natural gas, at least in the US. You could make 100% renewable ethyl ester biodiesel from ethanol, or make methanol from landfill recovery biogas, but we don't currently.
Third, soy and corn oil are crummy crops to make biodiesel from. But that's where the lobbying money is right now. Other plants have much higher yields.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html [journeytoforever.org]
Forth, no, it isn't a question of "food or fuel"? We can do both! Whenever you hear that argument ask yourself whether the person is well meaning but misinformed, or as been happening recently, is part of astroturf campaign to preserve the status quo of the petroleum economy.
Want to try making some biodiesel yourself?
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/howitsmade/ [biodieselcommunity.org]
Already making biodiesel and want to show it off?
http://www.cafepress.com/RenewableWear [cafepress.com]
Re:Have you ever??? (Score:3, Informative)
This is simply a function of the efficiency of the vehicle in question. It's not a problem of any single fuel. Biodiesel burns quite clean in an efficient engine at operating temperature.
Have you ever smelled a biodiesel vehicle in operation or at rest? Uhg! What a stench.
I have yet to smell one that was offensive to me. The worst I've smelled was a bit remimniscent of carmelization. Diesel smells much worse.
Have you ever driven a biodiesel vehicle? They are a bit quieter than when running on regular diesel but they also lack power compared to when running on regular diesel.
No. I've driven an SVO for a year. It had more power on the vegetable oil than the diesel. The fuel system ran smoother and the engine knocked less.
Biodiesel may become more widely used in commercial or off-road applications but, it will never take off for highway vehicles.
What do you mean take off? A certain percentage of auto-diesels are operating on it right now. Maybe you should say "everyone that uses biodiesel is a hoser, and can take off", or just grumble to your friends at the refinery.
Re:Experimental? (Score:5, Informative)
I found that in my Citroën CX 25DTR T2 (2.5 litre turbodiesel) I had quieter, smoother running, less exhaust emissions and a small increase in power. I could increase the boost (and thus excess fuelling) quite a bit without hitting the smoke point or cooking the turbo. All this from (effectively) free fuel.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Experimental? (Score:5, Informative)
I've used a mix of commercial ASTM spec biodiesel and homebrew biodiesel that my friend and I have made in our 'Appleseed reactor'.
Appleseed Plans - http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/appleseedproces
The parts kit - http://www.biodieselwarehouse.com/ [biodieselwarehouse.com] $229
"Were any modifications neccessary to run on biodiesel."
No modifications were needed on my stock 2003 Jetta TDI. Better yet, I can 'splash-blend' on the go - that is, I can add 5 gal of B100 to my car and then top off with regular #2 petrodiesel at the pump. They mix completely in the fuel tank and no special blending is needed.
As far a warrantee issues, my dealer knows I use biodiesel (the big sticker on the back of my car might have something to do with that) and frankly, they don't care.
VWoA officially allows up to a B5 blend and rumor has it B20 approval is coming shortly. Like all fuels, petro- or bio-, VW doesn't cover "misfueling" with bad quality fuel. If a tank of bad petrodiesel damages your injection pump, the retailer, not VW pays for the repair. So using biodiesel really isn't an issue as far as that is concerned.
Lastest alternate energy/fuel status (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007802.php [windsofchange.net]
It covers: Bio, Electricity, Fossil Fuels, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Nuclear, Solar, Water, Wind
US biodiesel production will reach 75 million gallons in 2005
A former malting facility in Jefferson, Wisconsin will be converted to house an innovative, $200 million ethanol production plant that, in addition to 140 million gallons of ethanol a year, will produce 20 million gallons of biodiesel and, yes, 8 million pounds of tilapia fish filets.
an Illinois fertilizer plant that previously used natural gas as a feedstock is being converted to utilize gasified coal instead, and will produce 87 million gallons/year of synthetic gasoline and electricity to boot.
and with solar: Plans for large solar thermal power plants have recently been approved in Nevada and California, with a 64 MW plant planned near Boulder City and a 4,500-acre, 500 MW plant north of Los Angeles.
Bio fuel is DECADES old news (Score:5, Informative)
My first bio-fuel powered car was a Brazilian 1983 Chevette with a 1.6 liter motor burning 96% pure ethanol. For over 25 years there have been ethanol pumps in every Brazilian gas station.
Besides the cars that burn strraight ethanol, the gasoline distilled from petroleum in Brazil gets a mix from 20% to 25% ethanol, depending on the season. Today, most new Brazilian cars are equipped with "flex" motors that can burn any proportion, from 0% to 100% ethanol.
Big hairy Deal (Score:5, Informative)
The USA uses about 20,000,000 BOPD. Canada and the USA use over 22 million BOPD. This is a drop in the bucket.
If they scaled this up by a factor of 1000 (a $14 BILLION plant) then this would still be small potatoes compared to what we need. Even the Alberta tar sands expansions which will take us to about 3.3 million BOPD with investments in the 10's of billions and maybe 100's of billions by 2015 are small potatoes compared to what we need.
Yes - every bit helps but...
Lets look at the 4 top oil fields:
Ghawar (Saudit Arabia) 5 million BOPD Likely near decline
Canaterall (Mexico) 2.2 million BOPD In decline, 14% per year
Bergan (Kuwait) 1.6 million BOPD In decline, rate unknown
DaQing (China) 1 million BOPD In decline, 7% per year
These 4 feilds produce about 10 million BOPD, or about 12.5% of the world's 82 million BOPD production.
A decline rate of 10% in these 4 feilds translates to a loss of over 1 million BOPD. If we multiply that biodiesel plant by 1000 we still do not make up for the lost production of the top 4 oil fields.
The North sea went into decline in 1999 at a rate of about 14%. The UK became an oil importer this year.
Indonesia became an oil importer this year.
Australia use to be supplied by Indoneasia and since Indonesia can no longer supply Oz, Oz also has lined up at the Straits of Hormuz, hat in hand, asking for middle east oil.
This plant is just a drop in the bucket! If we build a plant like this every day for the next 10 years it won't be enough. That is how big the world oil peak problem is. We do not have a workable energy policy in place.
Has anyone even heard any of the damn pollies even dicusssing it seriously?
The most believable estimate I have is that world oil production will peak in 2007 and this is an optimistic estimate taking into consideration every oil production project on the planet.
Counter-Counter-Correction (Score:3, Informative)
Biodiesel tax breaks (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK, there is a 20p/litre tax relief for biodiesel, but this isn't enough. Even with current oil prices biodiesel is still more expensive. What we need is to completely drop the tax on biodiesel, that way oil companies and others will see a reason to invest. The tax break would also need to be guaranteed for a decent length of time, say 20 years so that investments would pay off.
There are problems with biodiesel. It would require vast tracts of land, and would probably end up using land in the 3rd and developing worlds to meet our needs for fuel. This land may have been better used for local food production. IMHO, this is not a huge problem, as it would provide much needed investment into developing and 3rd world nations, and of course many ppl would be employed to harvest the crops.
Some interesting biodiesel sites:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html [journeytoforever.org]
http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/ [vegetableoildiesel.co.uk]
They're not the first to do this.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Crazy! (Score:4, Informative)
Say we have a Thermal Depolymerization Plant [wikipedia.org] (which is what the article seems to talk about). Into the plant I dump animal wastes (offal, bones, skin, etc.) I add a little energy to run the process. Out the other side I get a hydrocarbon soup which is essentially light crude oil (technically not BioDiesel) as well as some other goodies like methane gas, nearly pure carbon (as a solid) and clean water.
Lo and behold, the energy I can get from burning the oil product is greater than the energy I put into the perocess! We can litterally take a portion of our output (usually the methane) and feed it back into the plant to keep it running. How can this be?!
Answer: There is energy in the animal wastes that you are not taking into consideration. Energy that otherwise would be completely wasted. Energy in the animal wastes + energy added to process < energy available as fuel product. This satisfies the laws of thermo just fine. But your USEFUL energy has increased. Looking only at the useful energy, your efficiency is up around 560% (see wiki article). If you consider the energy in the waste as part of the balance, the real efficiency is closer to 85%
Also, since pure carbon solids is a byproduct, you are actually removing carbon from the atmosphere. All of that carbon was once CO2, absorbed by plants and then eaten by animals which you then processed into fuel. Even if you burn all that carbon again there is a net zero change in CO2 levels. Thus, carbon-neutral.
What I find most interesting is how the process could possibly be tweaked to work on nearly anything carbon-based, like plastics. Imagine digging up old landfills and recycling the contents as fuel (organics and plastics) and materials (metals, glass, etc.)
=Smidge=
Re:ponies (Score:3, Informative)
Some of the people who contracted Mad Cow disease were vegetarians who got it from using fertilizer that (unknown to them) contained cow offal. There's no question that if a prion gets blasted out of someone's tailpipe, it will wind up in the food chain. The prion that causes Mad Cow is extremely difficult to destroy - it's a protein molecule, not a living organism. Even heat as high as 360C will not break it down, and traditional chemical sterilization doesn't work. I would be extremely worried about using any animals known to carry prion brain wasting disease (cow, deer, humans).
Horses are probably OK.
Is it really a net gain? (Score:2, Informative)
The promotion of "gasahol" here in the US turned out in fact to be a scam. The alcohol (distilled from corn) that we add to our gasoline actually REQUIRES MORE PETROLEUM to run the farm machinery and the stills than the energy content it brings to your tank. When this was revealed some years ago, suddenly gasoline with alcohol added was re-branded "oxegenated fuel" and touted as an anti-pollution measure. In reality, the legal mandate for its use is largely the result of intense lobbying by agri-business (in particular, Archer Daniels Midland) to rake in the subsidies the government pays to corn producers.
About the only place in the world where the use of biofuel in vehicles has been a net energy gain is Brazil, where they produce large quantities of ethanol from cane sugar, using the stalks as boiler fuel for the distillation. (A "rum-based economy", if you will...) This is however far less than ideal, since the distilleries generate quite a bit of pollution and the whole enterprise contributes to destruction of the Amazon rain forest to obtain more arable land.
Bio-diesel not diesel (Score:1, Informative)
Re:why bad on new diesels? (Score:3, Informative)
If you REALLY want to play the gasoline-in-a-modern-diesel game, here's a thread over at TDIClub on it...
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=123995 [tdiclub.com]
Re:Biodiesel EROEI (Score:3, Informative)
"One MJ of biodiesel requires an input of 1.2414 MJ of primary energy," Which means you consume more primary energy (ie Oil) than the process creates as an output, which results in a net loss.
So what? Every process for extracting or converting energy will result in a net loss; this is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. But here, "primary energy" does not mean fossil energy from petroleum. This ratio of 1 to 1.24 counts the solar energy stored in the soybean oil: "The largest contribution to primary energy (87%) is the soybean oil conversion step because this is where we have chosen to include the feedstock energy associated with the soybean oil itself" (13-14). Fossil energy is called "process energy" in this analysis. Furthermore: