Thread: Biodiesel/fuel

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If I could get out of here today,I'd be in Sacramento tomorrow,two of my sons live there. With the high foreclosure rates there,prices have really dropped. I plan on having a long talk with them when I go out to visit next month. Maybe while I'm gone the mortgage papers will rub up against the insurance policy causing some spontaneous combustion,saving me all the work this place needs to be sold for a good profit. Unfortunately that's not how my luck runs. I too won the 1969 draft lottery with lucky no. 100 Hank

Ok guys I've been hauling fuel for 20 plus years.
You have to be very careful how much you blend it.
With bio diesel we had problems blending more then 15%.
with regular diesel. If it got a mild cool at night it was
plugging up every thing. We use 4 in. hoses to drop
and the would be totally pluged up. and this is while
we were dropping thru the hose. It does not sit in the
hose for any amont of time. It was pluggin up as we dropped.
Fuel filters were pluggin up like crazy, we had to cut back to
5% till it warmed up enough to run up to 10% again.

As for as runnin Ethanol I would'nt especialy if I had an older car,
with a carb and not fuel injected. Kurt

Originally Posted by halftanked

If I could get out of here today,I'd be in Sacramento tomorrow,two of my sons live there. With the high foreclosure rates there,prices have really dropped. I plan on having a long talk with them when I go out to visit next month. Maybe while I'm gone the mortgage papers will rub up against the insurance policy causing some spontaneous combustion,saving me all the work this place needs to be sold for a good profit. Unfortunately that's not how my luck runs. I too won the 1969 draft lottery with lucky no. 100 Hank

Hank, my draft # was 1. I would have been in the very next batch to go when Nixon ended the draft.

My number did get called on April 10th,but I signed on with the Navy the week before. My older brother was in Nam at that time,and his advice was to keep my butt out of there. Spent 4 years in there and never saw a ship. Hank

I had older friends already coming back from 'nam that would have took pretty extreme measures to keep me from going.My dad was a Navy man in ww2 and thought I should join but looking down the barrel of a 4 year stint seemed like a lifetime back then. I wish I would have listened to him.

Getting back to biofuel, just as I was retiring from there,NYSDOT was running an experiment on using bio in certain counties upstate from me. I didn't stick around long enough to get any results as to gelling problems,or whether the fuel was blended with Kero to give it a fighting chance. All our diesel was winter blend,and with that we would see 1 or 2 cases of gelling in sub-zero weather. I primarily wanted the stuff to use as home heating oil, and will be stored in the basement which seldom gets below 55 degrees. Hank

Sorry we got off track. So were you planning to cook your own or buy it somewhere?

I can't find any suppliers locally, I was told by a friend yesterday that the state is buying up a lot of the used oil to make their own bio. They have been experimenting with alternate fuels and hybrid vehicles for some time. They bought a lot of natural gas vehicles, and found a lot of problems with suppliers, mileage range,blowing spark plugs rightout of the heads on some ford pickups,plus the fact its not even available in some areas, like here where I live. I can burn wood for heat, but that's not cheap if you have to buy it either,let alone all the other downsides to it. I'm talking to people now to see if I can get a few partners in on the bio, I've got plenty of time to invest, so all I can do is put the idea to them and see if anyone else wants to jump in. Hank

My personal evaluation of veggie oil is this. Consider where it is going. How long do you think there will be a supply of cheap product? Already cities and municipalities are doing it and tieing up the grease. Plus the oil companies run the government and they will get their fingers in the pie by regulating the disposal of used cooking oil. It is a mess and a hassle to collect and process, someone has to invest the time, equipment and location for all that.
Personally, for my home I would be leaning more toward things like solar and wind. Also if you live in an area that tolerates wood burning, look into the pellet stoves. Around here nothing can touch them for cost of operation.

all of the above and geothermal heat exchangers. If your ground temp varies from the outside temp, this set up works great on cooling and heating. Also on demand water heaters(tankless) are very efficient ways to lower the power bill. And the biggest cheapest thing we've done is insulate the old attic! I agree that solar will be our best way to go here, it's just the initial cost that prevents us from doing it, it's a slow longterm payoff, versus a more immediate savings like buying a cheap commuter car, that gets good milage. I like the biodiesel idea of coop with the neighbors to share the 3k expense of the converter, but wonder about the availibility of veggie oil too. My friend who runs a logging operation, uses tranny oil, and oil change oil, which is a byproduct of his big machinery, so his source is from within!
Like someones signature here says," anyway you look at it, it's going to cost you!"