Thread: Bio Fuel

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seen this on another site started all kinds of trouble ranging from the occasional good point to the insane , is it justifyed? do we need it? would you call someone a thief for stealing your tax dollars , well there it is anyone using it or tryed it out??

im all for it personally

I dont care if it runs on bannana peels and butterflies,as long as I can put my foot in it and it has performance.....honestly, whatever makes the fuel source to me is irrelevant ,it needs to be cheap and plentiful............

I believe it started out as a comment concerning an RV'er being issued a rather substantial fine for running bio-diesel in his pusher motor home. The fed's believe he is bypassing the road tax issue.

Several posters felt that he was cheating them out of tax dollars since the road tax paid on pump fuel (gas and diesel) pays a good portion of road maintenance and expansion.

Never really gave it much thought, but I can't see that all the bio-diesel, CNG, hydrogen/fuel cell, electric vehicles out there really would have that much of an impact on the total tax base.

If I drive slower on the freeway to conserve fuel (assuming that's valid), am I cheating someone else who drives faster? We both cover the same distance, and place essentially the same burden on the road. I pay less in taxes since less fuel was consumed.

Were EV's taxed in a different way, could you recharge at home or were you required to use dedicated recharge stations where you paid a road surcharge?

Cheers, Mark

I think it is something that definitely needs more R&D, the fuel that we use now is on the downhill slope, I want me grandkids that don't yet exist to be able to drive hotrods and cars when they come of age.

I think the whole tax structure on fuel is twisted now. I live in the central california valley. our major freeways, 99 and I-5 see heavy traffic from semi trucks (I watched a special that said 40% of the pollution here comes from intrastate trucking going through the corridor). I know that much more road wear and tear comes from heavy vehicles driving on it than from passenger cars. In fact I would wager that aside from weather damage (water seepage, expansion etc.) a road would last decades without damage if only passenger vehicles traversed it. Look at the difference in condition between the slow lanes and the fast lanes, the fast lane sees more vehicles (on a 2 lane like 99) but the slow lane has the heavy ones.

I know I know, truck drivers swear that their trucks don't cause undue wear on the roads. BS, increased axle weight, type of suspension on the truck transferring the load to the road bed etc. etc. all affect road wear.

In short, I think that passenger vehicle drivers should pay less in taxes for road maintenance than commercial vehicle. Furthermore, anybody using bio-fuel should receive discounts and I have no problem with them being exempt (until the number of people using them reaches a real significant level, at which point maybe there needs to be a penalty on those not using bio-fuel), not just because they are conserving fossil fuel, but because they are not producing the same pollutants and letting them into the atmosphere.

Before any of you think I am some greenie, I'm not, I just don't believe in abusing the environment and polluting it unnecessarily. I live in Fresno, worst air in the nation, they say children by the age of 2 have been exposed to more air pollutants than they should be by their teens. my 16 month old daughter was diagnosed as having asthma a couple of weeks ago. It's a sad thing for a parent when your child is sick and worse when you know it is environmental.

sorry for getting a bit off topic and long winded.

Red

Yeah I'm with you dago..
E-85 and bio diesel are made right here in Minn. Pump Diesel fuel is 2% or B2 here and has lots more benefits than detractions as far as I'm concerned. I plan on running E-85 in my hot rod next year. $2.15 per gal and 105+ octane...what more can you want.

Diesel will have to get close to $5 gallon before I can make my own fuel practically. I don't think home brewers should be taxed on this .. They simply do not and can not make a significant amount of fuel. They use waste oil that is often recycled and re-sold to the retail markets. Very little tax dollars. Besides I have to pay taxes on all the chemicals and components used to manufacture the little amount that I would use so it is not like I would be bypassing taxes. I don't think you should be able to run farm fuel or red stuff as we call it on the road. You are bypassing state and fed road taxes that everyone has to pay.

If you really want to be green bio diesel is about as green as it gets. It's completely bio degradable. Push came to shove you could use fresh B100 for salad dressing. It's nothing but a highly refined vegatable oil. One heck of a laxative. haha

Would I have to pay sales tax on the soap I could make from the leftover glycerine?? How about tax on the fireplace pellets that can be made from wood chips and leftover fats.

And for the gassers, home brewed ethanol is quite a powerfull drink, .....no experience just hear say. haha

All the by products of both fuels are biodegradable.

what does it take to convert your engine to e-85? I don't think we have any stations around here that have it but when I was in Colorado this summer I saw it and the car we rented could handle that or regular unleaded (I did notice their octane levels were different for their unleaded gases though).

Red

Gasoline contains much more energy than Ethanol. and ethanol burns slower (105+ octane) but if you advance your timing ALOT the less energy and slower burn make up for it with an average of 5% more power apparently.

Check this out

I don't think E-85 is the answer, it is only for right now fix, it will cause everything that uses corn to die off, or skyrocket in price, because of the demand to make E-85, the farmer will not be able to buy corn for his cows, and thats only the start of it, it has raised the price of milk already, and the farmer does not get the increase, it will only help the big buisness farms, and the people who make it, and corn costs more to every one else. We don't win anything.
Untill buisnesses stop being able to buy their way out of controling their pollutants, the air won't get better, everyone needs to share in that problem.

My .02 worth!

Pat

biofuels is not the way to go. The price of a gallon of milk here in VA. is now $5.39. They are telling us that it is because of the price of corn and soy rising because of the biofuels. Also everything that is made with milk and corn is skyrocketing. We are spending more for groceries a month then we are in mortgage for a family of four. One way or the other they are going to stick it too us. A report was just released on the bbc about the hazard of biofuels. We are taking a necessary food group and turning it into fuel. Without any consideration on how to compensate for the difference. I am all for alternative fuels and less pollution. By I believe that engines that turn corn and its like into fuel is not the answer. I believe that we should invest more into solar energy and that sort.

Sorry for the rant.

Atta girl....................you understand the situation very clearly.

When enough of the rest of the population get around to figuring it out we may stop the foolishness and aim our efforts in the right direction.

even castro is saying this will start a world wide famine .. thier are a few things that could possibly be done not that i am a scientest or anything
solar power , natural gas , steam , electric , if we all bought horses hay would just go up , and possibly make me a rich man hell yeah lets do that!
but seriously all of us have a little on the ball or we wouldnt be in this hobby we are into but man i dont see how folks are making it these days
with bills , sitters , food , fuel and the other stuff for life ..its a shame and not really an answer in sight..

One thing can not be stretched that far period...............It needs to be like a potluck dinner,a little bio ,a little electric a little solar etc.
There are billions of people drawing on one resourse,it makes it a tall order to replace that fully with one thing,therefore it needs to be diversified ,many different sources at this point,later when a replacement become viable ,then we can all shift to the new viable source....there is no viable source at this time for a full switch,which makes it nessisary to use many things at this point ,just to lighten the load for now.
Solar is looking good now ,with the new panel tech ,such as lining up all the crystals in the panel for a better output over a longer period of time.
Solar is viable now on the housing end ,there is just not very much savings over normal fuel at this point because of solar panel /battery life exspectancy.So not many people want to deal with it for no savings over a 20 year period,even though it would have a trickle down effect of lighting the load on oil based natural fuels quite a bit.
If we only burnt the stuff in autos ,there would be alot less demand at this point.

Bio fuels....E-85 is a boon to the local hotrodders as it allows very high compression, blowers etc for some real fun and not required race gas. It's becomming the thing here in the mid west. There are already several co. doing E-85 carb conversions and most of the EFI co. can handle it too. I don't think it will last for a long time (much beyond our life time) due to the food for fuel issue.

However the bio diesel is a different story. The home made stuff is made from waste veg oil, a small amout of methanol and lye. As long as there are fast food and family restraunts there will be waste veg oil. The methanol is 90% easily recoverable and 10% more difficult be doable. The lye is combined and recovered when the glycerine is converted into soap. The remaining by products of fats and oils are used to make brickets for the fire place and or fed to the pigs the enhance them. (maybe we should send some to Wash.) haha

Commercially made bio diesel is made from oil seed crops specifically grown to produce it. Not much if any comes out of the food chain. The algae process is well underway and will eventually replace the oil seed. Volume wise it will be a while before we could produce even 50% of the diesel used just for transportation but it is coming.

I keep an enormous spread sheet for my diesel truck and fuel is by far the highest cost per mile item. It's greater than financing and depreciation by quite a bit. I drive for economy as part of the diesel truck hobby and gear my modifications around this.

Diesel fuel will have to get to $5 per gal before I can even consider home brew unless shared with others. Home brew compared to standard fuel is probably in the 3rd or 4th decimal point as far as volume produced here in the states.