Thread: Biodiesel/fuel

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Anybody else been looking up info on this stuff? I've been looking at it lately,especially the big banners reading make your own fuel @ $.46 per gallon. That price does get your attention. What really looks good to me is the fact it can be made entirely from renewable resources. No,I don't expect to buy it for that kind of price, but I do wonder why I can't seem to find any availability of it here.Yes ,I do realize that using corn to make oil would drive the price up,and yes I do realize that quite a bit of this years crop was ruined by flooding, which of course will drive prices up. Luckily,corn isn't the only thing that can supply the needed components, and the mid-west isn't the only place it can grow. The real cold bare fact here is that we need to get off our dependence on imported oil,and anything that will reduce it needs to be put into use. Hank

I looked into this a while back and they have several kits that will allow you to
convert lot's of used veggie oil. Now where do I and millions of others get
a reliable source of veggie oil?
What will this waste cost me if everyone wants it?

I sure wish this AWAR thing wasn't such a political football. They want to drill on a tide flat, not up in the beautiful mountains that they always show.
They also keep saying that it would be 12 years or more before we start seeing oil from that area.
I sure don't buy that. They can start with some offshore platforms that can be sent in and the oil sent over to Prudo Bay pipeline head end. It's already in place and operating.

Well, in the meantime, I'm doing my part. My Wife is driving her Prius to work and I'm driving her "ug" Miata.
We've parked the truck and only use it for hauling stuff.
For us, the gas prices have had zero impact on our driving fuel costs.
Wish they didn't have an impact on the things we eat.

We're planning a huge veggie garden next year and a local veggie stand.
We've got 20 acres that will grow anything.

DT

Real Goods and a few other places are selling Biodiesel fuel refinery machines. They run 8-10k. Locally we now have a station that sells Biodiesel at one of it's pumps. I'm not sure that it is any cheaper at the pump, but the local refinery making it, uses mosted recycled fuels like oil from deep fat fryers and oil changes from cars, so it's a mix of stuff in there. As others will post here, to produce your own fuel source you are subject to taxes. I don't think people would get bent out of shape if it was just for your own use though!

I'm still waiting for diesel hybrids to make it on the car scene. I know they are trying this out, but haven't seen any for sale yet.

Used to be that most restaurants would get there veggie oil in 5 gallon containers and then put the used oil in the empties. A lot of them sold it to diesel owners for use.

But now, there are cooking oil recovery trucks that pull up to the local McDonalds and pump out the used oil and then pump in fresh oil. No used oil available for sale to individuals. Kind of takes the fun out of it.

Probably still a lot of restaurants that do it the old way, but not the big restaurants. They've gone to recovery systems.

If you can have (french fry) sump oil delivered, or even pick it up from local fast food places - that's the way to go!!!

I would imagine you can buy barrels of it - from the oil recycler also.

But then - this is all big business now -

Actually, don't think the 'plant' is hard to build yourself either.
A couple of hoppers and a circulation pump.

I'm sure you've seen the videos - here's a good demo -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...KwqNGaAw&hl=en

Steve wrote:

I'm still waiting for diesel hybrids to make it on the car scene. I know they are trying this out, but haven't seen any for sale yet.

Steve, it's getting closer everyday. A number of European and Japanese car manufacturers will have biodiesel cars for sale in model year 2010 including M-B, Audi, Nissan, Subaru. Save your nickels and dimes and maybe you can get one of the new Audi R8's with the diesel.

Have to wait and see if biodiesel fuel will be any cheaper that regular diesel or gas. When you blend supply and demand along with greed, it might be too expensive. Might want to hold out for a solar powered electric car.

I have a good friend that has been doing it for a while. He has tried lots of different slants and claims cooking it with the lye and methanol treatment is the best way to go. In this small community he gets way more used veggie oil than he can use. I just put a pump on his 6.5 Chevy, that he runs on grease, last week. He really has no problems with the stuff now. But collecting and handling the stuff plus processing, is all a nasty business and time consuming.
And technically you still owe the road tax.
Personally I would be going after the used tranny fluid or old transformer oil. You can run up to 50% no problem and some say even straight in the summer and 15% unleaded with it i the winter to keep it flowing. The 4BT forum has some good discussions on it.

All this talk suggests that McDonald's will have two lines, one for grease and one for grease..with fries.

not quite bio diesel but since our diesel is at $1.64 a litre
I'm mixing 50/50 diesel and used engine oil
filtered with a homemade filter setup- basically three pillow cases inside each other- from the thrift store not the wifes best
There are two filters on our Golf Diesel and so far so good
no difference in power or smoke( it has none of each)
hank

I was more interested in using biofuel for home heating oil. We've already cut back to only using our G6 for transportation,my other cars sit. I use maybe 7 gallons of gas for mowing the lawn, so my major expense is the roughly 900 gal. of fuel for heat, and that's with a new high effiency boiler. Last years oil cost about $2700 and the projected price for this year is well over $ 4000.This kind of money means heat or eat,but not both. The whole point to this is that if I have to go broke buying fuel, I'd rather do it by purchasing something that could help the economy and not further screw things up with petroleum. Now if we take all diesel vehicles, and homes burning oil and supplied them with bio,how many barrels of oil would be saved for use where there is no substitute as of yet? I believe it would reduce the need to import by half if not more. Try and remember that the amount of petroleum in the world is finite,sooner or later it will be gone. Bio on the other hand is not, it is an entirely renewable source. I really wish I had the wherewithal to get into this business,as I think there is a very lucrative future in it. Hank

Around here a lot of people are switching to pellet stoves. Just $2-$3 a day to heat a pretty good sized house.

Pellet stoves are nice, but the ones I've seen need electricity to run the auger. Friends of mine swear by theirs, but also almost froze a few years ago when they lost power for a week during the winter. Always good to have a back up generator, or other heat source!
Nice thing about pellets is they don't make much mess, easy cleanup, and they burn very clean too and as stated above are cheap to run.

We live in one of the first houses built in our town, and were a bit supprised to find out we couldn't put in a wood burning stove. It seems the old wood stoves were removed long ago, and then replaced with furnaces to heat the house. Because of clean air laws, new homes here aren't allowed wood burning stoves! Yet the 70's and 80's track homes here all have them! Go figure, our place was built in 1858!

Halftanked wrote:

Last years oil cost about $2700 and the projected price for this year is well over $ 4000.

I would recommend moving to Florida and forget about a heat source. Plenty warm there year around and you'll only need an electric heater about 5 times a year. Lots of places for sale now due to the high percentage of foreclosures (one of the top 10 places in the country).

Unfortunately, what you save on heating costs, you'll likely pay out in home insurance (maybe even more)

But you will have car cruises someplace every week to occupy your time.

I spent more cooling my house in Texas than I spend heating my house in S.D.
I will be going to a pellet stove. We have locally made ones so they are cheap. Also an extra couple hundred bucks with get you a battery backup for outages. Those longer ones would required a way to charge the battery(s)

Hold on a few more years...according to Algore, New York will be a balmy tropical place very soon.

It must be true, I read it on the internet!