Breakthrough in Biodiesel Production 406
MGR writes "National Geographic is reporting that Japanese scientists have discovered a way to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel with a much less expensive catalyst (between 10 and 50 times cheaper) than what is currently used. From the article: 'Any vegetable oil can become fuel, but not until its fatty acids are converted to chemical compounds known as esters. Currently the acids used to convert the fatty acids are prohibitively expensive. Michikazu Hara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have used common, inexpensive sugars to form a recyclable solid acid that does the job on the cheap.'"
Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Informative)
Don't only a huge carbon sink but also all that nasty water vapour from the ice caps melting and the sea levels rising would be a huge water sink also.
Australia could join in too.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
necessity of exporting? maybe not... (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, I heartily welcome more R and D and deployment of biofuels. But older fuels are still used, I am using "stored solar"-wood-as my primary residential heating source, same as humans have been doing for millenia. We have a "domestic supply" and it is quite significant enough for our needs, hence no need to "export cash" to purchase someone elses developed energy product, nor do we need to "export the raw materials" for anyone else to use. That's a micro scale, macro between nations is just "larger".
Humans will use up the available petroleum, biofuels becoming massively more available or not. The use will only drop when it gets closer to a stasis point, when it takes one "barrel of energy" to produce an identical barrel of energy. Then it will stop.
Re:necessity of exporting? maybe not... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that petroleum will be exhausted, regardless of alternatives. But hopefully finding new energy sources will let us use it in much more far-sighted ways. This should be right up there in the benefits list, alongside environmental advantages and the opening of foreign policy options.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, what I would expect more than anything is the Saudis to invest heavily in BioD and other alternative energies once they see a winner and corner that market as it emerges.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
reference [doe.gov]
So, don't count on breaking that dependence on 'foreign oil' so easily.
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Informative)
Thus, while oil continues to account for more than 95 percent of all the energy used for transportation in the United States, oil accounts for less than 20 percent of the energy consumed for other, stationary uses, down from 30 percent in 1973.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear power and electric cars are a solution, probably not the solution.
It actually seems quite close, aside from the infrastructure.
Infrustructure is a HUGE problem. How do you get electricity or hydrogen to where you need it? For the US anyway, you're talking about reworking the entire electrical grid. And we still don't have an acceptable way to dispose of the nuclear waste. I'm a proponent of both nuclear and hydrogen power. But we need to be realistic.
With biofuels you can use current infrastructure. And current vehicles can use it with little or no modifications. Probably the reason there is so much interest in biodiesel is that with a cost effective solution there, you could convert every train and semi in America. Go for the least disruptive method that targets a very large market. From there you can look at either diesel cars or ethanol as the next step.
That's not to say you can't use more than one solution, but I don't see electric/hydrogen cars being popular outside of larger cities any time soon.
key word is catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: the catalyst is 10 - 50 times cheaper, not biodisel fuel itself, while the breakthrough is meaningful, the headline is misleading. I'd be curious to know what percentage of the total cost of producing biodisel is related to the cost of this catalyst.
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2, Interesting)
Far from it, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas all have very low unemployment rates and with the low cost of living it's much easier to own a home and live comfortably on the Great Plains than in the "successful" parts of the US.
South Dakota's rate right now is 4 percent, with urban areas in the Great Plains seeing unemployment rates as low as 1 percent at times.
I have a friend from High School in Sioux Falls South Dakota making 85K with a 2-year vo-tech degree right now, thats letting him build a 4,000
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Oil!
Hydrogen is a *vehicle* for energy. The energy has to come from *somewhere*...
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Informative)
Source: http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/whatisit.htm [uiuc.edu]
Scientific-grade solar cells are about 15% to 20% efficient with some going as high as 24%
Source: http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2006/nov/solar11020
Solar Stirling engines achieve nearly 30% efficiency at an installation at Sandia National Laboratories.
Source: http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2
So I'm sorry to say that plants SUCK at converting sunlight into energy we can use. As the first link states, the initial reaction in photosynthesis is nearly 100% efficient, but as biological processes consume that energy, the total efficiency for the system drops significantly. Work is being done to attempt to make "biological solar cells" which use the initial reaction in photosynthesis as their method of light harvesting, but to date nothing has been produced.
Electricity storage for vehicles is a bit of a problem, unfortunately. I haven't got any links declaring that one solved.
Bursting bubbles... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
Diesel engines top out at maybe 40% efficiency, and we've already discussed the other efficiency factors. So if we're looking at, say, 5% light->hydrocarbon fuel an
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
I think alternative crops (like sugarcane or microalgae) can even out-compete PV in terms of energy contribution over the entire lifecycle.
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
Not on any timescale that is meaningful to human industry. "Oil" or petroleum is as much a product of geology and geothermal effects as anything else... it is absorbed into the Earth's crust, transformed by pressure and heat, and spewed back out by volcanoes as CO2 and noxious fumes. So it is not merely solar power because there is a whole lot more baggage that goes with it: We are transferring the natural carbon sink in the Earth'
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, there is some indication that the oil companies actually share our concerns over energy needs more than we think. It may not entirely be about money to them, they want to stay in business don't they? For instance from Chervon [willyoujoinus.com]:
The cynic would probably think that this is just a scam or excuse to raise oil prices and increase profitability. I think that is shortsighted. The ramifications are too great to ignore [blogspot.com], even the greediest among us would not like to face the economic and societal ramifications that would follow sustained oil shortages. What good is money if you can't spend it?
On second thought, maybe I should hope that is exactly what they are trying to pull! It beats the bleak outlook sustained shortages would lead to any day...
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:2)
3rd world countries will be able to "grow" a very essential component of fuel.
What, you mean like [cia.gov] Nigeria, Angola, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Yemen, Belarus, Suriname, Nicaragua and Guatemala does today?
OK, so most poor countries (why do people still call them third world?) haven't got any oil. But most of the rich countries haven't got any either.
Human energy use linked to global warming (Score:2)
The alternative is to plan on getting into space and not being limited to the resources on good old planet Earth. Unfortunately, such investments seem to be taking a back seat to things that have a more immediate payback, like making sure everyone c
Re:Human energy use linked to global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
All that reduced carbon in the plant-oils COMES FROM CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
Thus, biodiesel is sustainable.
The *real question* is, how much energy from fertilizer does it take to make this biodiesel? I'd understood that to be the big expense (along with the water,) and not the processing, but I could be mistaken.
Re:Human energy use linked to global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure about rapeseed, but soybeans require fairly heavy herbicide treatments to get good crops. And with Asian rust coming to the states, fungicide as well!
I think that corn is a less energy intensive crop to produce per bushel than soybeans. 1 acre on a good year (like this year!) will yield about 55 bushels of beans. That same acre on a good year (like this year!) will yield about 250 bushels of corn.
why does this really matter? (Score:2)
Personally, I'm a little suspicious as to whether this is truly a catalyst or a consumeable.
Re:why does this really matter? (Score:2)
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Informative)
200 ml methanol. I'm currently paying $2.50/gallon for methanol. Which puts my cost per gallon of biodiesel at about $.50
1 ml Sulfuric Acid. I'm currently getting this for a little over $1/oz Technically that's expensive, but so little is needed that it works out to only $.15/gallon biodD.
31-37g Sodium Hydroxide (depending on pH of oil) Lye is what's expensive. Hopefully, this is the catalyst the Nature article is replacing. Every so often a good price on lye will show up, but it is usually between $.20-$1/gallon biodiesel. If this article talks about replacing the lye, I'll definately try it.
... and furthermore it's an *alkali* (Score:3, Informative)
Of course a lot of older diesel engines can run perfectly well on straight veg oil - I've had best results from PSA engines (found in Peugeot, Renault, Volvo and Citroën, among others) that use Bosch fuel pumps
MOD PARENT DOWN TO HELL (Score:5, Informative)
Minimally modified vegetable oil.
PLEASE STICK your old propaganda shit (which you already had prepared, because it would have taken you longer to write that article than the story is online) and shove it up your ass.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN TO HELL (Score:2)
First, I understand that there have been some pretty good breakthroughs in ethanol production as well (though truth be told, the yeast take their share of the energy with them). But biodiesel is more efficient.
What would be best would be taking the waste from making biodiesel and using it to make ethanol. In this way your energy cost is spread across the generation of two energy products with less waste.
The ideal energy economy is where we are using waste to generate our energy as much as possible
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN TO HELL (Score:5, Insightful)
Can that be right? One acre is barely enough for a horse. Either I slipped a decimal point or horses are really inefficient.
The real problem with biofuels is not efficiency. It is chemical conversion. Getting the molecules into the proper shape at low cost will take a lot of clever chemistry that hasn't been done yet. The "breakthrough" under discussion is one piece of the puzzle.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN TO HELL (Score:4, Interesting)
With some additional data:
20 horsepower (average use) * 746 watts/hp = 14920 watts for a car to run all the time - so say an average of 1500 if it's used 10% of the time
Even at 1% solar to fuel efficiency and 33% car efficiency, that's 450 kw or 450 m^2 per car
an acre is about 4047 meters => 9 cars/acre
A different way (I know it's only Wikipedia, but if these numbers are right...):
Let's see: I use about 15 gal/week * 52 weeks = 780 gal/year - let's make it 1000 - so I'd need up to 1/10 of an acre.
Since it takes about an acre of farmland to feed a person, this seems quite reasonable. Even better, algae can be grown in the desert using seawater, so land and water that is useless for most other purposes can be used for biodiesel.
Re:key word is catalyst (Score:5, Informative)
Repeat after me: "Ethanol is not biodiesel" "Ethanol is not biodiesel" "Ethanol is not biodiesel"
This post is pure FUD and the guys study was probably financed by entrenched petroleum industry advocates anyways....
Lye = expensive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Manufacturing lye and methanol uses fossil fuels.. (Score:3, Informative)
Methanol is produced from methane, AKA natural gas.
So the 2 chemicals needed to produce biodiesel (and reduce fossil fuel use) both depend on fossil fuels for their production.
The biodiesel prod
Biodiesel more at the pump? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I'm no biodiesel guru, but it is of some interest to me -- I drive an older diesel (which I plan on converting to run on SVO, as soon as I get the facilities to make this feasible.)
Bottlenecks (Score:5, Informative)
For biodiesel created with conventional crops the bottleneck is like you said, that there isn't enough enough aritable land on the planet to create as much biodiesel as we currently use in gasoline and diesel. Algae based biodiesel solves this problem but is significantly more expensive to produce than convientional biodiesel last time I checked. Honestly though, I haven't heard about any new research in that field since the DOE Algae program was put to an end back on Clinton's watch.
In reality there is no one solution to the problem. The solution will be a combination of an increase in biofuels, more efficient cars, more public transportation that runs off the grid, and even then transportation will likely be more expensive than we have become occustomed to transportation.
Space (Score:2)
there isn't enough enough aritable land on the planet to create as much biodiesel as we currently use in gasoline and diesel.
Who says we need to put the manfacturing plants and facilities on earth? Growing algae requires what, minerals, sunlight, and water. Surely the moon or similar body up there contains enough minerals, the water might be a bit tricky but if we can divert a comet or something similar, you can put a massive orbital facility around the earth and drop the refined biodiesel into the sea
Re:Space (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Biodiesel more at the pump? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Biodiesel more at the pump? (Score:5, Informative)
Er, no. Biodiesel is a fuel produced from vegetable oil, it is not vegetable oil. The article is about a cataylst to improve the process of vegetable oil to biodiesel.
Some people have done conversion work to run diesel engines on vegetable oil [greasecar.com]. That's way cool. But that's not biodiesel.
Blends of biodiesel and tradtional petroleum diesel fuel are popular. That doesn't mean biodiesel is a blend.
Re:Biodiesel more at the pump? (Score:3, Funny)
You heard it here first. 1/2 ;-)
Re:Biodiesel more at the pump? (Score:2)
I just fueled up three hours ago. Regular diesel was $2.79 a gallon; biodiesel was $3.06 a gallon. But anyway, even if biodiesel was half the price of regular diesel, wouldn't you want it cheaper still?
Cheap Fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that it matters, I just bought a nice, fuel efficient gasoline powered car... It should be wearing out about the time the patent expires on this new process.
Legacy support (Score:2)
1) Hybrid engines and
2) Fuel cell engines.
The main reason is that electric cars are just more energy efficient. You can do things with them to increase that efficiency that you just can't (easily) do with internal combustion engines. Things like
Vegetable fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
If this biodiesel process can be applied to enough different types of plants, then it should be possible to pick and choose crops based on what does well in a given area -- after all, we don't have to worry about market pressures and what people want to eat, it's just going to be converted into fuel -- which should minimize the effects of choosing hihg-impact crops.
Re:Vegetable fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Bioethanol is ethanol made from cellulose feedstocks. These should, in practice, be much lower in terms of energy input required than corn or similar crops used for human consumption. The economics of bioethanol produced by SSF (simultaneous sacharination and fermentation) bears almost nothing in common with corn ethanol.
Furthermore, if you get rid of farm subsidies from the equations, then the market should take care of making sure energy costs are fully reflected in all prices. Carbon impact is another story, but shouldn't be too hard to measure (and probably is closely correlated with the portion of costs attributable to energy use).
As for biodiesel - I am under the impression that the major costs are associated with the feedstock itself, not with the acid used in processing. From memory, I think that the feedstock cost is responsible for at least 60-70% of the final cost of biodiesel, so I wouldn't expect a 10x reduction in acid costs to save more than a few percent in total cost. Genetically engineered bacteria seem to provide the most reasonable way to make an oil feedstock for bioethanol production efficiently. The reason that some people think biodiesel is cheaper than diesel is that in Europe they get huge tax breaks on biodiesel, so they are comparing apples to oranges.
Bioethanol is by far the most promising alternative fuel available today, with attractive envrionmental impact and economic characteristics, and only modest incremental cost to make Flexible Fuel Vehicle engines that can burn either ethanol or gasoline. It's too bad there is zero governmental support for this here in the US. We could greatly reduce our foreign oil dependence within 5-10 years with just a bit of political willpower.
Re:Vegetable fuel (Score:3, Informative)
Ethanol has more energy per gallon than does gasoline
Nope. The energy density of ethanol is about 2/3 of that of gasoline.
not a catalyst (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not a catalyst (Score:5, Insightful)
A catalyst not being used up is all good and well, but it doesn't do you very much good in the cheap department if you can't easily get that catalyst to stay where the reaction is taking place; i.e. if there's no way to get the catalyst out of the resultant biodiesel and into a fresh batch of vegetable oil, it's not getting consumed, but it's getting siphoned off (via the endproduct) none the less.
Well (Score:5, Interesting)
The next problem will be a shortage of arable land due to land used to produce the vegetables that are then going to become diesel. This could solve one problem and lead straight into another
Re:Well (Score:2)
You are right, it is not and I seriously doubt it ever will. It just takes too much land/vehicle to be practical. Some parties [blogspot.com] indicate that this issue of oil dependence has already gone beyond critical mass (meaning supplies have peaked and will slowly not be able to meet demand in the near future causing all kinds of economic and social griefs--neither of which possibilites I had ever considered possible
Re:Well (Score:2)
The problem with nuclear fusion, in my view, is that it's still centralized. Stuff like solar, wind, and biodiesel are (or can be) distributed, giving you no one single point of failure. Distributed energy systems are, I believe, where it's at.
And regarding the batteries,.. Ni-M-Hydride seems to be the as good as it's gonna get for a long while. Lots of money has been spent on research in this area already.
If the Peak Oil (pessimist) [wikipedia.org] guys are right, I
In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
Forests paying the price for biofuels [newscientist.com]
Careful what you wish for.
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
But more importantly, if this product has a chance to avoids a war over oil, its worth a lot more than more acres of land being used. And as we make progress in agricultural technologies (and share that technology with the rest of the world), we may not even need more than the currently existing farmland to supplement 20% of the worlds disel with biodisel.
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Have we gotten anywhere if we are still trying to use the same amount of petroleum - but now we're just using it to grow more vegetables to make more fuel?
Re:Farmland war? (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Of course, since biodiesel can also be made by refining wastes, there aren't really any needs for new crops anywhere at all.
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Everone wins! (Score:4, Insightful)
If the government could help farmers grow soybeans and in return reduce dependence on foreign oil, both left and right wingers would be happy. Imagine that! Good for security, good for American jobs, good for the environment, and even good for business (cars would need some retooling).
Where do I sign up? Oh, it's one of those "This technology will be really cool when it becomes available in 10-15 years" stories, huh?
Truly NOT +4 Insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Biodiesel is already a good business and has seen exponential growth in the US for the past 5 years (nearly doubling in output each year).
Why aren't you growing it? I don't know. But I'm fueling up with it.
In absolute terms, the volume is still but a dent in our energy supply. But then there is also that "square state" interest resulting in Minnesota mandating a 2% minimum bl
SVO (Score:5, Informative)
Don't mod me into oblivion for pointing out a negative to biodiesel. I know about the benefits: http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Ma chines/Diesels_Clean_Green_Illegal.S196.A3569.html [thecarconnection.com]
Re:SVO (Score:2)
this is definitely a very good piece of news though
Mods need a clue here. (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH if you had even Googled "biodiesel carcinogens" you would know that one of the benefits of BD is exhaust that is 90% less carcinogenic than exhaust from petro-diesel. One of the reasons its less toxic is because BD reduces particulates and unburned hydrocarbons.
The main downfall of BD at the tailpipe is NOX, and even then only a slight increase. It can be argued that reducing unbuned hy
bad comparison: diesel!=gasoline (Score:5, Informative)
I'm already aware of the benefits of bio-fuels over petroleum diesel. I'm even aware of the CO2 benefits of bio-fueled diesel engines over gasoline engines. It would be difficult to read slashdot without being aware of the benefits, but that's not what I was commenting on. I was pointing out a negative that is seldom mentioned on slashdot; diesel engines, even when they run on biofuels, have more soot particles in their exhaust than gasoline engines. If you google "biodiesel particulate emissions" you will see that even biodiesel advocates admit this.
Those soot particles are the main reason [epa.gov] why the EPA gives the 2006 Jetta diesel a horrible air pollution score [epa.gov] even though it gets over 40 mpg. The difference in particulate (soot) emissions for diesel and gasoline engines is so great that it is very difficult - perhaps impossible - to get light duty diesel vehicles (i.e. cars) Tier II certified in California.
Right now, every gasoline burning car that is replaced by a biodiesel or SVO burning car causes us to have higher levels of soot in the air. From my original link [thecarconnection.com]:
That was the problem I was commenting on, and you responded with something totally off topic (a comparison of biodiesel and petroleum diesel.) Now, it is actually possible to clean up the exhaust on diesels quite a bit. That same article goes on to mention a way to solve the sooty particulate emmissions:
Unfortunately, the article does NOT explain the drawbacks of this process; the extra emmissions control equipment costs a LOT, and it reduces the power and fuel efficiency of the diesel engine. That's a problem, since fuel efficiency is one of the main reasons we are considering diesels in the first place, which is probably why most of these methods are still not used on new diesel vehicles. Besides using oxidizing-type particulate filters to get rid of soot can even increase the levels of carbon monoxide:
http://www.fleetguard.com/fl [fleetguard.com]
Or you could just use straight vegetable oil... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh... yeah, that's right... if people pushed the use of straight vegetable oil then they probably couldn't justify selling biodiesel for $4-$6 a gallon.
Re:Or you could just use straight vegetable oil... (Score:2, Informative)
Since when was $800~ (without labor) cheap? SVO is a great idea if it flies. But there are more issues with SVO than bio-diesel, one of them being the additional parts required.
Granted, you have to start and end on diesel/biodiesel to warm up the vegetable oil.
This is part of the problem. Burning dino-diesel isn't that big of a deal to me
Re:Or you could just use straight vegetable oil... (Score:2, Interesting)
why is this a breakthrough (Score:2, Interesting)
I have an SVO Blazer. It's a real pain in the ass getting that grease out of dumpsters. I worry about the health factor. It seemed like I was getting sick more often when I was doing it. My wife made fun of me for a year. I fought a defective system and had lots of problems. Yeah I don't listen to naysayers and neither should you. I got 15k mi. doing it, then I ran out of time
Re:why is this a breakthrough (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was looking at a grease car kit I discovered recycled vegetable oil at a restaurant supply house for $1.20/gallon. My plan was to buy it in 55 gallon drums, which they'd deliver free.
Just wondered if there was a reason recycled oil wouldn't work? Because dumpster diving in grease barrels for waste oil doesn't really appeal to me either.
I'm happy to pay $1.20/gallon for someone else to handle the collection and filtering.
Re:why is this a breakthrough (Score:2)
I had a friend that was really into the veggie oil thing. Aparantly there are clubs around with like minded people who will help you do the conversion and set you up with an oil supply. $1.20 is nice, but the local burger factory might let you have it for free if it means they don't have to pay to get rid of it.
also, apparantly you car will perpetually smell like fast food, so don't do the conversion until after you'v
Re:why is this a breakthrough (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Making soybean biodiesel cheaper won't solve the problem because the limited supply will only meet so much of the required energy needs. It might even cause more problems by creating economic pressure to convert food oils into fuels.
Not Invented Here (Score:5, Interesting)
Since this is an accomplishment not by American Industry and is contrary to the current powerbrokers of Dino-fuels it won't mean shit in America.
2005: law is passed giving a tax credit for bio-diesel mixes. But this eliminates all B-100 biodesiel because it's not a mix. Tax rebates are not made available to the consumer.
2006: law goes into effect which raises the bar on small diesel engine emissions (commercial vehicles excluded) making it impossible to sell a new diesel car in the United States because the fuel used in the Unites States is too dirty to pass the emissions test. It is not the engine, it is the fuel that fails the test. There are no American automotive manufacturers selling a diesel engine in the United States.
2007: law is supposed to go into effect to introduce low sulphur dino-diesel which should permit diesel sales to go into effect. I'm a little suspicious that this law isn't currently under assault. But we won't know for another year.
Go search the internet. The technology for production of bio-diesel and the studies identifying the environmental benefits have been in publication, on the internet of all places, since 1998. And what has been done about it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not Invented Here (Score:3, Insightful)
Their business is transportation, processing and delivery. Whether they are moving and refining petrolium or veggie oil it's the same basic ball game.
If I were to fear anyone it would be Big Agriculture, not Big Oil.
Re:Not Invented Here (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually a good idea because removing the sulfur compounds from diesel fuel allows for the use for high-precision pressurized common-rail direct fuel injection into the combustion chamber and the use of a new generation of catalytic converters that double as diesel particulate traps. I've read that BMW has actually gotten their 2.0-liter I-4 and 3.0-liter I-6 turbodiesel engines to meet the 2007 California Air Resources Board diesel emission standard for automobiles using low-sulfur diesel fuel, a truly remarkable achievement considering the difficulties in reducing diesel emissions. This could pave the way for BMW to offer their highly-regarded 3.0-liter turbodiesel engine on the 3-Series and 5-Series vehicles along with the X3 and X5 "crossover" SUV's in all 50 states starting in the 2007 model year.
Comparable to E85? (Score:2, Interesting)
Given that the H2O powered fuel cell is the holygrail of power systems, wasn't there a push awhile back to use Ethanol and its easy to break hydrogen bonds as the "fuel" for the fuel cell?
Re:Comparable to E85? (Score:2)
Firstly, for the purposes of combustion, biodiesel is a lot more like petrodiesel than ethanol is like unleaded petrol. It takes a lot of work to convert a petrol-powered car to run on ethanol without long-term engine damage, whereas diesel-powered cars can run on any mix of biodiesel and petrodiesel, which is why I prefer the biodiesel path to the bioethanol one.
(As an aside: here in Australia, diesel-powered small cars are quite new and are all pretty expensive. For the most part, "
Re:Comparable to E85? (Score:2)
Most corn is not raised for direct human consumption - much if it is fed to animals. Diverting corn to ethanol production leaves a product called distillers grain which is a very high quality animal feed - even better than corn. Distillers Grain info [distillersgrains.org]
Waste oil (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I've singlehandedly come up with a solution to this problem. Legislation must be put in place that requires all foodstuffs consumed in the United States to be fried. Meats, breads, veggies - it all needs to be fried. Once all food is fried, there will be plenty of waste oil to go around.
Are you doing your part? Step away from the grill - it's the law.
A few more details, re: homebrewing etc. (Score:5, Informative)
With higher Free Fatty Acid feedstock, such as really used grease, the acid cataylst helps convert those FFAs. You can read a little more on the chemistry of
the news item here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/inexpensi
Nature abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd
Another abstract:
http://www.researchsea.com/html/article.php/aid/3
Seems this process is five times more reactive than other solid catalysts, but still 50% that of the liquid acid - however sepearation afterward would be much
easier.
overheard conversation (Score:2)
"Hey fatty, don't eat that! Biodiesel Is People!"
Re:overheard conversation (Score:2)
Tokyo Institute of Tech (Score:3, Funny)
Artificial Photosynthesis? (Score:2)
If this process could be reproduced in a lab, and then commercialized, maybe you'd be abl to generate lots of biodeisel without having to grow and harvest acres upon acres of land. If you do the math (lost trees, tractor fuel, time to harvest) many feel that biodeisel en-masse is actually more harmful to the planet than it is beneficial.
But if bio
Re:Artificial Photosynthesis? (Score:2, Informative)
Doesnt help (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One Problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this scalable? (Score:2)
The answer by all accounts is no. For example [lifeaftertheoilcrash.net]:
Re:Is this scalable? (Score:2)
That implies you need about 270 bushels of corn to produce the fuel for your vehicle for a year.
On a decent year, corn yields about 250 bushels per acre.
Re:Nooo...... (Score:2)