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

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!

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).

"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.

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...