Have Your Bacon and Drive It Too

An anonymous reader writes "Love ham, bacon and/or sausage? Now you can share that joy with your car. Smithfield is going to turn the waste from 500,000 hogs/year into biodiesel. For those of you who don't know about biodiesel check out this site on how to make your own."

Comments

Biodiesel info

[j-turkey]

For other really intersting biodiesel info, check out The Grease Car

--Turkey

two man enter, one man leaves!

[buback]

Strangely reminiscent of Mad Max, don't you think.

Free Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

Beer contains ethanol, a cheap clean source of energy with a very high calorie/ml ratio. Given free beer, you can solve the world's energy problems.

But then...

[ptaff]

So, Americans have a known problem with obesity.

Do you think it'll help to use gas made from bacon, sausages and ham?

Imagine your morning traffic jam, with that 'breakfast is ready' smell. You look to your right, you see a man drooling behind his wheel. You look in your mirror, you see men trying to suck your car exhaust.

Whew!

What about...

[bayankaran]

...gas, I am usually gassy, can I make some fuel out of that and use for my truck?

That's nothing

[GuyMannDude]

Smithfield is going to turn the waste from 500,000 hogs/year into biodiesel.

Bah! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and thats the way I likes it!

Oh wait, wrong hog...

GMD

Biodiesel is a reality

[Exocet]

If you're in the Portland, OR area and are interested in making, distributing and using biodiesel then you're welcome to join the GoBiodiesel Cooperative. You can get more info at the website, GoBiodiesel.org. We're about 6 weeks from having a processor that will be capable of producing up to several hundred gallons of biodiesel per week.

Since we're a cooperative and a new one at that, there are opportunities in all aspects of biodiesel: sales/marketing, engineering/processor design, oil collection, administrative stuff, etc. Whatever floats your boat (or drives your car).

Biodiesel in the land of Oz

[km790816]

I have a good friend that works for the Australian Biodiesel Consultancy. They are doing similiar things.

Biodiesel is great for countries that have no domestic oil sources. It burns as efficiently and more cleanly than the stuff you get out of the ground and it's using food waste we'd have anyway.

Cool stuff!

"double edged sword"?

[Strange Ranger]

It doesn't mention the by-products of burning biodiesel, but I would think more sources of diesel-like fuel is one of the LAST things we need.

Environmental damage and pollution from livestock is a very serious problem and probably the main reason I'm "pescatarian".
But I'm far from convinced that this process of converting the waste into fuel and burning it like diesel isn't just an equal-but-different evil, or worse. A far better option would be to treat industrialized meat as the sister-evil to SUV's. AKA Ridiculous Consumption in the vast majority of cases.

Re:"double edged sword"?

[Exocet]

Not to flame, but you haven't done any homework in this area, have you? Fortunately I (and many others) have.

What we need less of, MUCH less of, is gasoline and gasoline engines.

I can list off more benefits of biodiesel than there is space for this comment. So I'll stick to just the highlights:

(From http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/fuels/altfuels/bi odiesel.pdf)
- Use of 100% biodiesel will reduce CO2 emissions (when compared to regular diesel) by 50 percent
- Use of 100% biodiesel will reduce particulate emissions by 70% when compared to regular diesel).
- Again, use of 100% biodiesel will reduce Total Hydrocarbon (THC on your DEQ test results) emissions by 40% compared to regular diesel.
- 100% reduction in sulfate emissions when using 100% biodiesel!

"Other" benefits:

- Biodiesel is produced, distributed and locally used. Don't want a war in some middle eastern country with people you've never met? A way to avoid such conflicts is to be self-reliant in terms of fuel.
- Biodiesel can be produced from damn near any vegetable oil you can think of. See: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html ...Which means that biodiesel can be produced from vegetables grown locally - just about anywhere people live.
- Biodiesel can be produced from waste vegetable oil. This helps to "close the loop", meaning that that WVO doesn't end up in a landfill.
- Biodiesel represents a "closed carbon cycle". Regular diesel and gasoline come from oil, which has been safely buried in the ground for millions of years. When it comes up and we burn it, we're adding CO2. When Biodiesel is burned, since it came from living plants or animals it doesn't represent an increase in CO2 - just a redistribution.
- Use of biodiesel requires zero modifications to a late model diesel vehicle and only minor upgrades of fuel lines and other rubber bits to older diesel vehicles.

I could go on and on, but I won't. Any benefit you can think of for regular gasoline or diesel, biodiesel will trump. And biodiesel is available RIGHT NOW, as opposed to hydrogen-based fuels cells or other good-idea-but-not-yet-practical green technologies.

Re:"double edged sword"?

[Ashurbanipal]

How much energy and resources does it take to do the conversion? Has that been factored in?

Less energy than it takes to effectively manage the waste through any other means. Seriously, the pig farmers aren't doing this because they are dancing california flower-child wannabees. They are doing it because they have a serious waste disposal problem, that is costing them titanic amounts of money, and this is a way to sell the nastiest, most volatile fraction of their waste products.

You can rant about industrialized meat all you want, but as long as an ever-increasing number of humans want to eat meat, somebody will step up to produce that meat as cheaply as possible. That's how the capitalist system works, when it does work. Managing the waste of that industry with less harmful pollution and less discarded resources is an admirable thing, as is helping to make the US more energy-efficient.

Read Carefully!

[dman123]

The hog waste is being turned into methanol, not biodiesel. The methanol, among other things, is then added in the traditional manner to vegetable or animal fat to make biodiesel.

The headline is misleading and the equivalent of saying that hydrogen and oxygen can be made into beer, neglecting to mention that they are first combined to make water, then used in the traditional manner to make beer.

Articles like this (the original, not /.) make me shake my head in disgust. The production of the methanol from the hog waste has to stand on its own against the more efficient production of methanol from natural gas sources. I doubt it can.

Disclaimer: I have a vested interest in biodiesel and this article raises my blood pressure. Go to www.biodiesel.org to learn about what biodiesel is or is not.

Pigs

[Johnso]

This would be the perfect fuel for cop cars...

yes it is

[zogger]

biodiesel is just so derived from vegetable products OR animal fats.

From the very top of link of a google search using searchword biodiesel:

http://www.biodiesel.org/ (catchy url, yes?)

What is biodiesel?
Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

How is biodiesel made?
Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products -- methyl esters (the chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (a valuable byproduct usually sold to be used in soaps and other products).

Is Biodiesel the same thing as raw vegetable oil?
No! Fuel-grade biodiesel must be produced to strict industry specifications (ASTM D6751) in order to insure proper performance. Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. Biodiesel that meets ASTM D6751 and is legally registered with the Environmental Protection Agency is a legal motor fuel for sale and distribution. Raw vegetable oil cannot meet biodiesel fuel specifications, it is not registered with the EPA, and it is not a legal motor fuel.

For entities seeking to adopt a definition of biodiesel for purposes such as federal or state statute, state or national divisions of weights and measures, or for any other purpose, the official definition consistent with other federal and state laws and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) guidelines is as follows:

OFFICIAL DEFINITION

Biodiesel is defined as mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats which conform to ASTM D6751 specifications for use in diesel engines. Biodiesel refers to the pure fuel before blending with diesel fuel. Biodiesel blends are denoted as, "BXX" with "XX" representing the percentage of biodiesel contained in the blend (ie: B20 is 20% biodiesel, 80% petroleum diesel).

and so on, and etc....

I don't know how to code, but alternate energy is a hobby of mine.

You missed something

[Spamalamadingdong]

- Biodiesel can be produced from waste vegetable oil. This helps to "close the loop", meaning that that WVO doesn't end up in a landfill.

Biodiesel can also be produced from WAF (Waste Animal Fat). Say what you will about the desirability of mass-feeding and slaughter operations; using waste fat for fuel is better than putting it in landfills.