Posted by
michael
on from the obligatory-earth-day-post dept.
i22y writes "With Greasel instead of Diesel in your tank, you can pull up to Jack-In-The-Box and fill up both your stomach and your gas tank. Run your car on old fryer grease and vegetable oil! Obligatory pictures and FAQ."
Homer: Marge, if you don't mind, I'm a little busy right now achieving financial independence. Marge: With cans of grease? Homer: [sarcastically] No! Through savings and wise investment. Of course with grease.
Bart: Dad, isn't mom going to be mad about us ruing her car? Homer: If she didn't want me to ruin her car, she shouldn't have left her keys laying around the house.
GREEN GREASY GREASELS
I am playing it again, there is a lot of cool stuff I didn't find the first time. Like Sandra from the 'ton is one of the bums at the abandoned service station after Vandenburg.
Also, that crazy woman with all of the cats being killed by greasels in Paris. That was great too, although she didn't get upset when I jumped off a crate, onto one of her cats killing it.
Yes, it's legit, bio-diesel even predates petroleum by about 15 years. It is still used in farm machinery, and here in Northern California, it's slowly becoming a fad, I'm seeing lots of bio-mercedes and bio run vw passats. It burns on par with petroleum based diesel, it's not any better for the environment, but it's great for the agri-industry and bad for the oil industry.
Re:or
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Hey, justinland, did you Read His Fucking Link? It's about a company (Changing World Technologies) that depolymerizes various biological (and other) waste products and turns them into useful substances such as oil.
It is in fact real and scientifically sound (tried submitting it earlier but got rejected...); widespread deployment of these plants could eliminate the need for landfills, while also making oil dirt cheap. As an added bonus, they can refine previously unusable types of petroleum, and break down inorganic substances into reusable raw minerals as well. Understandably, Japan for one is VERY interested in this... Philadelphia is looking at deploying these plants as well as soon as they see how viable it is on a larger scale.
I can assure you that it is legit. Apparently they're doing a nationwide rolling tour as they stopped by the town I'm currently living in. To get fuel for the next stop they dropped by the local Chinese take-out place and relieved them of some of their waste grease. They pulled out of town leaving an exhaust trail that smelled like shrimp fried rice.:-)
Very cool...
-- G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Totally legit, my neighbor has this system, she had it installed last year. Works great and smells like french fries coming outta the exhaust. Much rather smell that on the freeway during rush hour.
They pulled out of town leaving an exhaust trail that smelled like shrimp fried rice.
OK, yeah, I'm gonna sit in traffic for two hours breathing shrimp fried-rice, donuts, and fried chicken, then get home and have a nice salad and a blanched chicken breast. Right.
Save the planet, pork up its populous - interesting dilemma.
-- My God, it's Full of Source! OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wrong. The use of biodiesel uses carbon pulled from the sky, not the ground. Also, the University of Montana claims its BioBus produces far fewer obnoxious pollutants compared to any type of petroleum. The biodiesel is esterified with alcohol, so it is an oxygenated fuel. That's why it burns so clean.
-- "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Well, I go to CU, and a few of our busses here on campus run on BioDiesel. They are trying to increase student fees by $00.49 a person to convert all of our busses to that. If the students here vote it down, then well... they shouldn't have!
How does that make consumer culture sustainable? burning oil in your car is still going to choke us off the planet...
It makes it sustainable because it opens up the possibility of closing the CO2 cycle.
(1) Plants take CO2 from the air. (2) Plants are eaten by people/eaten by animals (which in turn are eaten by people as well)/processed for manufactured goods/etc. (3) Resultant human, industrial, and municipal wastes are converted into oil. (4) Oil is burned, producing CO2. (5) Goto (1)
Instead of using fossil fuels, we can produce our own from CO2 already existing on the surface. Thus the atmospheric levels of CO2 become variable, but limited amounts, constantly being recycled into new fuel thanks to photosynthesis and good old Amercan ingenuity.
Jack in the box
by
EvilTwinSkippy
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Hmmm... which is more deadly now. The car or the fuel...
-- "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
It's already been done
by
chrisseaton
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Haven't they been doing this in Wales or Ireland or something a while ago? I remember a BBC radio news item about police stopping and checking people's cars (it's illegal, you see).
Re:It's already been done
by
jerrytcow
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· Score: 1
I don't think they have to stop the cars to check. They should be able to tell by driving behind them. Apparently a nice side effect is that the exhaust smells like french fries (or some other fast food - I can't remember exactly what).
Re:It's already been done
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chrisseaton
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· Score: 4, Informative
Here y'all go, it's already been done in Wales (2002) (it wasn't illegal) and Tokyo (1998).
Re:It's already been done
by
Hieronymus+Howard
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· Score: 5, Informative
It's not illegal in the UK if you pay tax on the biodiesel. The problem (as far as the government was concerned) is that people were running their cars on fish'n'chip oil without paying any fuel tax.
Asda (Walmart) in the UK now run their fleet of delivery lorries on recycled donut frying oil.
HH --
Re:It's already been done
by
throwaway18
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There is a BBC news article about Welsh Police impounding cars because the owners used cooking oil as fuel without paying fuel tax here.
Re:It's already been done
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
IANAL but, I believe it is not illegal to do this in the US.
Temkin
Re:It's already been done
by
afidel
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually there was a case where a gentleman in the UK was cited for tax evasion for using homebrew biodiesel because his fuel was not taxed and hence he was not doing his part to maintain the roads.
-- There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:It's already been done
by
MarcoAtWork
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· Score: 1
yeah, but the thing I don't understand is how can they formulate a tax law in such generic terms that automagically anything you run your car on becomes 'fuel' and has to be taxed.
What is going to stop the UK government from, for example, adding another tax to electricity if it's used to recharge a car's batteries? and what about fuel cells?
They're starting to do this too in Catalonia.
Biodiesel here costs the same as normal diesel (even if it's more expensive to produce iirc) but there are only very few selling points.
-- I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
Re:It's already been done
by
Nexus+Seven
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· Score: 1
Its roughly determined by the CO2 output per unit of fuel.
Electricity has zero CO2 output (at the point of use), so isn't taxed (at least not directly). LPG has very low CO2 output per unit, so is taxed at a lower rate than gasoline.
Gasoline/Diesel/Grease all produce a similar amount of CO2, so they all receive a similar tax weighting.
I don't live in the UK anymore, so things could have changed, of course.
"The problem (as far as the government was concerned) is that people were running their cars on fish'n'chip oil without paying any fuel tax."
OK, so let me get this straight: The government is unhappy that you're not paying a tax on more environment-fuel, a tax that was supposed to convince you to use more environment-friendly alternatives to begin with.
You know there's too much bureaucracy when...
Re:It's already been done
by
carlos_benj
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· Score: 2, Funny
They should be able to tell by driving behind them. Apparently a nice side effect is that the exhaust smells like french fries (or some other fast food - I can't remember exactly what).
Dang! I hate being behind those guys. I get hungry, fat and acne just from being in a traffic jam during rush hour....
--
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Asda (Walmart) in the UK now run their fleet of delivery lorries on recycled donut frying oil.
Mmmm...I'll bet the exhaust smells delicious!
Re:It's already been done
by
elwoodblues16
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· Score: 1
The problem (as far as the government was concerned) is that people were running their cars on fish'n'chip oil without paying any fuel tax.
Disappointing on first impression. But if the tax is ostensibly for road and infrastructure upkeep and repair then it's entirely reasonable to tax any fuel, be it gasoline, diesel, vegetable oil, hydrogen, or whatever.
What is going to stop the UK government from, for example, adding another tax to electricity if it's used to recharge a car's batteries? and what about fuel cells?
That's kind of the point: fuel tax is supposed to pay for road maintenance.
-- "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala,
it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:It's already been done
by
Rob+Simpson
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Electricity has zero CO2 output (at the point of use), so isn't taxed (at least not directly). LPG has very low CO2 output per unit, so is taxed at a lower rate than gasoline. Gasoline/Diesel/Grease all produce a similar amount of CO2, so they all receive a similar tax weighting.
That's insane. It misses the point of biodiesel entirely: all of the CO2 produced was sucked up by the original plant source, so the net CO2 production is zero.
Re:It's already been done
by
gpinzone
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· Score: 1
Wouldn't it just be easier to rewrite the tax law to get the deisred income without penalizing the biodiesel users?
Re:It's already been done
by
Pharmboy
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· Score: 1
Hey, Oregon is wanting to put GPS gear in your car, so they can tax you based on miles travelled, rather than by gallon of gas, which takes away the benefit of better mileage. Might as well get that SUV, since you will pay the same taxes.
Here in NC, I just filled up. $1.49 a gallon for unleaded. Over $0.42 of that is taxes. I guess that is not enough for them.
-- Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:It's already been done
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
[ That's insane. It misses the point of biodiesel entirely: all of the CO2 produced was sucked up by the original plant source, so the net CO2 production is zero. ]
Does it matter whether one uses gas or biodiesel to re-introduce the CO2? The fact is, they both introduce CO2 back into the environment.
It would be nice if they actually spent the fuel tax on roads and infrastructure. Currently in Australia there's a billion dollar discrepancy between spending on roads and fuel tax input every year.
Our government takes 38 cents a litre (about 1USD/Gallon) in fuel excise and returns 6 cents a litre (0.16USD/Gallon) in road funding. I paid 101.9 cents per litre for petrol a month ago - that's 2.75USD a gallon. It's certainly enough to make you start looking around for alternatives, that's for sure.
--
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike. There is a lot of hype here.
Re:It's already been done
by
bigsteve@dstc
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· Score: 1
That's insane. It misses the point of biodiesel entirely: all of the CO2 produced was sucked up by the original plant source, so the net CO2 production is zero.
Actually, the net CO2 production for the entire cycle is considerably greater than zero. The farmer puts regular diesel into his tractor and nitrogen fertilizer onto his fields. Then there's the energy input for getting the oil seed to the processor, extracting the oil, refining it, packaging it, shipping it to the wholesaler, shipping the cooking oil to the primary user, collecting the waste oil...
And finally, the greasel car drive burns the stuff.
But that is misleading too. To make a balanced assesment, you need to compare the total carbon cycles for using waste grease as fuel, versus doing something else with it.
I suspect that it really makes little difference whether you use the waste cooking oil as fuel, or bury it as landfill (burning an equivalent amount of petrol in your car / fuel oil in your boiler, etc)
Why not tax tires? Tarrifs on "bad fuels" can be used to subsidize road maintainance, while a good portion can come from tires. Sure tires will more than double in price becasue of it, but you'll save all that money on gas and "vice taxes" are incrediablly high on many items. Most of the money you spend on alcohol goes towards Uncle Sam.
-- ---
Justin Dearing
http://www.justaprogrammer.net/
We're just programmers.
Re:It's already been done
by
Travoltus
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· Score: 1
Uh, but don't plants, like, USE CO2? CO2 in, Oxygen out, and all that?
I am not, like, seeing the danger of CO2 (carbon dioxide) as opposed to, say, Carbon Monoxide...
-- ---
Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Re:It's already been done
by
MarcoAtWork
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· Score: 1
you're honestly telling me that you believe that every cent made off fuel taxes goes to road upgrades and repairs? I think the one that lives in a candycane place is not me...
Biodiesel is not illegal in the UK. You can buy Biodiesel at some places in the UK although not many. As it is used a lot more on the continent a lot of foriegn oil companies will sell it in the UK without telling the customer (ELF for example).
-- I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
And of course there's no energy used to mine petrol. And since we're talking here about used vegetable oil, it's obvious that the farmer wouldn't have used energy to produce his vegetables if there hadn't been a demand for bio-diesel.
Sarcasm aside, that farmer could use biodiesel, and the net energy production would still be positive. This together with the fact that not all of the plant can be used to produce oil shows that the net effect is that carbon is removed from the atmosphere. This in contrast to petrol, where we move carbon from a stable, deep in the earth buried state up into the atmosphere.
For a more complete analysis of biodiesel check out The Official Site of the National Biodiesel Board and in particular, their summary of a comparitive EPA report on Biodiesel Lifecycle. I have seen a better source, but I'm not finding it right now, so I'm hoping that will be enough argumentation to motivate you to do some research on your own.
duty on petrol is just that - a nice tax bonus for the govt.
note to americans worried about the price of petrol: here in the UK we pay 80% tax on petrol and diesel (slightly less on LPG) this morning my local petrol station has unleaded at 78 pence a litre....
very little, if any, of this tax goes anywhere near the road systems, it just helps balance the govts books.
--
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
Yep - along with the above, and routing the majority of monies levied via road traffic offences and vehicle licensing fees into consolidated revenues, the various State and Federal Governments here in Oz have reaped a bonanza in defacto taxes from the road system.
Meanwhile, people are dying as a direct result of the negligence of road maintenance, and the lack of contribution of road system derived monies to any kind of comprehensive driver training scheme.
-- "Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
There is a BBC news article about Welsh Police impounding cars because the owners used cooking oil as fuel without paying fuel
That impounding was actually illegal, as using cooking oil in cars is allowed as long as tax is paid. (~26p/litre) That tax doesn't have to be paid until the tax return form is filled in after the fuel is used. Did the police offer the car owners the chance to pay the tax? No. So why hasn't anyone appealed against the impounding in court?
According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. - http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article =featoil.html
Maybe not, but the part that does pay for those upgrades and repairs still comes from the tax and you would still be whining about it.
"I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners."
Berkeley Breathed
-- "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Re:It's already been done
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Imagine the increase in accidents this would cause due to people who refused to replace their tires until it was too late. Tires aren't consumable in the same sense as fuel, making this an extremely risky proposition.
Re:It's already been done
by
SubtleNuance
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· Score: 1
THAT is a TERRIFIC(!) idea!
I am tired of sprawl and bad land-use decisions in order to support a ridiculous car-centered culture. If you paid by the mile, you would be encouraged to drive less - hell, you might just walk(!) or ride the bus..
best damn idea ive heard in ages... i hear portland is wonderfull.. if oregon wasnt in the USA, i might consider living there.
Re:It's already been done
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Pharmboy
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· Score: 1
THAT is a TERRIFIC(!) idea!
No, you miss the point. Its a terrible idea in that it PENALIZES people who buy very efficient cars, since 1/3 of the fuel cost is taxes. It makes buying and owning a fuel efficient car MORE expensive, by a large margin. Those of us that drive Chevy trucks would not really be affected, since our gas mileage is bad enough we break even (17.5mpg everywhere)
Oh yea, and most American's would call this an absolute violation of privacy. In America, we believe it is not any business of the government where we go, and GPS monitoring would allow them to check your every move. Seeing that we are a free country, we would consider this dangerous.
best damn idea ive heard in ages... i hear portland is wonderfull.. if oregon wasnt in the USA, i might consider living there.
Thats ok, we already have plenty of people who think its ok for the government to track every citizen, we don't need more.
-- Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
obligatory simpsons quote....
by
xao+gypsie
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
...my God you're greasy......
-Homer Jay Simpson
xao
--
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Informative
The original car engines could run on just about anything - until the big diesel and gasoline companies bought the patent for the engine, and converted it to run on only what it does today.
Seems to me like this is just a step back towards the original engines which could run on just about anything.
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
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mrjive
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Did Greasel discover that diesel engines will run on cooking oil? No. The first diesel engines (invented by Rudolf Diesel in the late 1800's) were actually designed to run on plant oils. Immediately after Rudolf's untimely demise, his colleagues (who were just then tapping the resources of petro-based fuel sources) swept his veggie ideas under the rug and actually converted his design to run on petro-based 'diesel' fuel (which they were nice enough to name after him).
(Emphasis mine)
-- If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
by
alienw
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· Score: 1
Bullshit conspiracy theory. Standard internal combustion engines can not possibly burn anything other than gasoline or maybe alcohol. There were some experimental fuels for them, but you don't get nearly the same power density and they aren't as easy to get. Diesel engines can run on many things, but diesel fuel is pretty much a byproduct of gasoline production, so it was cheap and convenient.
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
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Hieronymus+Howard
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· Score: 2, Informative
Apparently, the Dr Rudolf Diesel ran his original engines on peanut oil
HH --
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Spark ignition engines are very picky about fuel especially when you go to higher compression ratios for better power and efficiency, hence the different octane ratings of gasoline. OTOH diesels and gas turbines will run on just about any fuel you can pump into the combustion chambers.
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
An you look like an assclown because of the other replies. good show.
Re:Doesn't seem too amazing to me...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Some people are very alergic to peanut oil. In fact, those that are, will die of asphyxiation. Good luck harvesting and selling peanut oil for the sole usage as fuel. If someone die in a traffic jam because of the now "toxic" fumes, your going to get sued!! At least that's how the world works now adays.
Jackpot justice. Gotta love it.
Diesel Swaps
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Apparently, most modern diesel engines can burn this stuff without alteration...
Anyone know of a good V6 Diesel out there that would fit in an S10 Blazer? I'd love to plant an acre or two of weed(s) to grind up and brew BioD with...
Really the only problem, and its not really is a problem is the filters need to be clean often, but only because the internals are being cleaned so well by the biodiesel.
Another problem is that biodiesel "fogs" up if it's not kept warm. If you live in a place that sees ambient temperatures below 50deg or so you're going to have problems.
Some people get around this by diluting the BioD with regular Diesel. Others run on two tanks... one for regular diesel to start, and another for BioD that is warmed up by the engine's waste heat. =Smidge=
A few years late on the news front
by
spiffy_guy
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· Score: 5, Insightful
People have been making "Biodesiel" for years now. This is nothing new. A little lye and some vegetable oil is all it takes.
What is interesting is that it is still cheaper to buy real desiel than vegetable oil. Where biodesiel has an advantage is in recycling used vegetable oil that is no longer food quality but is with a little work good enough to burn in your car/airplane. Unfortunatly there is not enough of this to make a real dent in the American desiel usage.
-- Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
Re:A few years late on the news front
by
atomicdragon
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I worked for a small company performing research into alterations to diesel engines. One of the things we played with was vegetable oil and biodiesel. Biodiesel is a great fuel since it produces no net carbon dioxide (all of the carbon in it was pulled from the air by the plants) and it lacks the sulfur found in normal diesel.
You can also run an engine on straight vegetable oil, which is different from biodiesel. The only problem is that the oil is really thick, so you have to start and stop the engine with normal fuel to heat it up, then switch to the vegetable oil after a minute or two. I've heard of products that will do this automatically for vehicles, but we just switched fuels manually. Although it doesn't burn to well, and the fuel economy is not a good as diesel (as in volume of fuel/power) but the pollution is not that bad. There is a slight increase in the particulates (smoke) produced, but otherwise its comparable to normal diesel without the sulfur. Also (this being appreciated more when you're standing around the engine all day) the smell of fries is a decent change from normal exhaust.
Re:A few years late on the news front
by
HungWeiLo
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· Score: 1
Yup. Checked out a biodiesel-run VW Beetle today. Gas mileage was 45/48 (or something like that.)
-- There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Re:A few years late on the news front
by
eodmightier
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· Score: 2, Informative
Yeah you can run biodiesel on the newer VW TDI engines without any mods. Really nice setup.
So you can pickup a new Golf TDI and go biodiesel crazy.
But this article is a bit different since it deals with raw cooking oil without any processing done to it.
-- -Eod
Re:A few years late on the news front
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Madd_Hatter
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Read one of the best books ont he subject, "From the Frier to the Fuel Tank". Just recycling current used grease could fuel 10-20% of current US diesel usage. But the real key to making this work on a larger scale is water algea farms which produces massive amounts of vegitable oil. It could be possible to produce more oil then we burn a year in diesel on not that many miles of farming.
But really diversity is the key to a more balanced enviroment. The fact of the matter is this is waste that could be recycled and the method can sustain a lot more people then currently do it. I know, as I'm a grease burner.:)
Re:A few years late on the news front
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Perhaps you and the poster need to think even further back. The first diesel engine ran on vegitable oil, because petrolium was too expensive.
Re:A few years late on the news front
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The only problem is that the oil is really thick, so you have to start and stop the engine with normal fuel to heat it up, then switch to the vegetable oil after a minute or two. I've heard of products that will do this automatically for vehicles, but we just switched fuels manually
Wow, just like in the fucking article, to which you added NOTHING.
Re:A few years late on the news front
by
Gojira+Shipi-Taro
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· Score: 1
"Biodiesel is a great fuel since it produces no net carbon dioxide (all of the carbon in it was pulled from the air by the plants)"
While I won't deny the obvious benefits of Biodiesel, I have to point out that, as petrochemicals are the fossilized remains of plantlife from the distant past, all of that carbon was pulled from the air by plants, too.
-- "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Re:A few years late on the news front
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photon317
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· Score: 1
Shhhh, you're going to cause some eco-hippie to glimpse the real world, break down into psychosis and try to kill us all with his army of trees. It wouldn't be pretty.
-- 11*43+456^2
Re:A few years late on the news front
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Fjornir
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· Score: 1
Sir, ma'am, or other, I feel that you may have missed the point. Yes, of course, that carbon was once pulled out of the atmosphere, way back in the long-long ago. And it has been safely buried away for quite a long time. Long enough that a new atmospheric balance, favorable to the conditions we now enjoy, was struck .
Generating a biomass fuel removes carbon from the atmosphere. Burning it releases that carbon. No (or little) net change.
Pulling oil out of the ground and burning it releases carbon which has not been participating in the carbon cycle, causing a net increase from that datum.
-- I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Re:A few years late on the news front
by
0123456
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· Score: 1
"Biodiesel is a great fuel since it produces no net carbon dioxide (all of the carbon in it was pulled from the air by the plants) and it lacks the sulfur found in normal diesel."
And, uh, what about all the energy used to produce the fuel from those plants? I don't know the current state of the art, but last time I checked a couple of years ago it took more energy to make the fuel than you got when you burnt it... that energy has to come from somewhere.
"There is a slight increase in the particulates (smoke) produced"
Mmm, yummy, only a "slight" increase in the evil carcinogenic particulates that the British government claim kill 10,000 people a year in this country.
Re:A few years late on the news front
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
C02 is not the only reason cars are bad, m'kay? before you rant off about 'eco-hippies', try and do a little reading, m'kay? Land use, urban sprawl/design, danger etcetcetcetc there are a million substaintial issues with cars - no matter what they run on. If you run them on biodiesel, where do you intend to grow all this extra plant material in order to maintain the present oil-consumption? are we gonna leave ANY spaces untouched OR make every wild plant and animal extinct?
Greasecar.com.... yeah... never mind it's been up for freakin ever, I read about it here ages ago.... I've got a post somewhere saying something like the following:
It's impractical because grease is already recycled, you have to A) own a deep fat fryer, or B) know someone who does. (and they'll pay you to take it away)
Actually. I converted a car using the GreaseCar kit after the/. article last year. Every restuarant I talk to jumps at the chance to give away grease. They pay about $1 a gallon to get it picked up!
-- Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
Cost of Veggie Oil
by
EvilTwinSkippy
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't really seeing this idea getting to be uber-big. First off, there are only soooo many fast food joints to raid. It's going to become like the waste hops from beer, marketed trash with a competitive street price.
If a tone of people start doing this they are going to find the veggie oil costs a HELL of a lot more than diesel. (Anyone ever price out biodiesel?)
-- "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Re:Cost of Veggie Oil
by
ikeleib
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· Score: 2, Informative
Kitchen grease already has a street value. It's called yellow grease and is used for making animal feeds. Many restaraunts have a contract with a yellow grease company. They often have locks on their grease traps to make sure that spurious pickups don't occur. There is, in fact, yellow grease theft and smuggling.
Re:Cost of Veggie Oil
by
Exocet
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· Score: 5, Informative
I'm on the board of directors for the GoBiodiesel Cooperative in Portland, Oregon.
We have priced out what it costs to produce biodiesel (as a cooperative). It costs us approximately $1/gallon in pure supplies (plus electricity) to produce biodiesel. We're just starting (first test batch last weekend!) but are well aware of the costs. We're using methanol right now but would like to switch to the more expensive but more enviro-friendly ethanol. We'll see what happens on that front. Oh, and once we're done producing test batches with lye we will be switching over to...sodium methoxide (???). I can't recall what it will be, to be honest.
We will need to recoup the costs of the processor, the building it's located in, etc. Plus, we'd like to pay volunteers a small amount for their time.
We plan on selling biodiesel for approximately USD$1.25-$1.50.
If you're interested, visit the GoBiodiesel Cooperative web site and learn more about what we're doing.
We plan on selling biodiesel for approximately USD$1.25-$1.50
Not trying to be a troll, but what's the effect (either way) of all the taxes included in any automotive fuel. I mean, you either end up at $2 or more per gallon with the taxes, or Oregon* is going to make an exemption that costs them a necessary chunk of their annual budget? You're damned either way, it seems, unless you're foreseeing am early-achievable mass-production cost that hits before-tax petrochemical fuel costs.
I realize this doesn't happen instantly (early adopters will get biodiesel taxfree, I'm assuming), but seriously, what happens when a larger percentage of the population goes this route?
The issue is like soaring state/federal tarrifs on landline phones, as people shift to untaxed alternatives (cells, IP telephony). The tax structure game has to be zero-net-sum, so either the loophole closes or everyone else pays extra.
So... is it realistic to see costs of biodiesel hitting whatever the pretax costs are for diesel or other automotive fuels?
--
* I initially had a remark about your state's financial straits and 4-day school weeks, but a nearby school (Challis, ID) just did the same thing. Glass houses, stones, etc. The news quote that blew my mind was the HS principal saying "the kids seem to like the idea." Duh.
Great comment! I wish I had the numbers on how much, in taxes, you pay to subsidize the low diesel/gas prices that we in America (I'll assume you're an American) have.
The biodiesel we'll be producing is not subsidized in any way, shape or form by the US government. The true cost of our biodiesel is (approx) $1.50/gallon to produce and sell and be self-sustaining.
That is without fed tax, BTW. The feds (IRS) have rescinded any federal tax on biodiesel. Our members (co-op members) pay state taxes, though, about $0.45/gallon.
Irregardless, I hope that 5-10% of the population converts over to diesel and starts using biodiesel. The enusing funding issues for our highways would be more than worth the fact that we'd be drastically lowering all the crap that goes into the air, water and land. We'd be supporting our local economy. Closing a carbon use loop. There's so many positives - too many to list here. I'll fight every step of the way, if need be, to see biodiesel everywhere. It is, as one of our bumper stickers says, a "fuel with a future".
Challis, ID... as in Idaho, so yes, I'm in the US. Last time I saw, there were 67 cents per gallon of taxes here. That's been years ago, when a local gas station protested the taxes by changing their huge overhead sign prices to "$.72 (plus tax)". On each pump was a sticker itemizing the state/federal taxes.
True cost (not sure what that means) of $1.50, using volunteers (price will climb when paychecks are needed), using poor/small scale efficiencies (price will drop as scale increases), with a bit of vagueness on the per-gallon state tax being included or not. I'm your typical *late* early adopter, so this sort of matters: if you can't convince me, you're going to have great trouble getting 5% adoption. I apologize if I misread it, but I can read your posting either way: do people pay $1.50 plus.45 = 1.95 a gallon (for what I understand is lower fuel mpg efficiency)? or is it $1.05 plus.45 = 1.50 for a final cost? To your credit, a 20 or 30 cent per gallon premium still makes up so tiny a percentage of the overall cost of owning a car for an infrequent driver like me that I am interested enough to keep looking into the idea.
You mentioned one other thing: pollution. How does biodiesel burn? What impurities or exhausts do we have to deal with? Environmentally, a nice thing about fuel cells and electric cars is they let you concentrate the dirty stuff (assuming combustion still is used to create the H2 fuel) at a plant with scrubbers, monitors and more elaborate antipollution measures, rather than using the 'catalytic converter and a prayer' (or as my dad called it, 'the solution to pollution is dilution') way of handling auto exhaust. So, what's the worst thing that comes out of a biodiesel exhaust pipe? Is there a way that some impurities in the biodiesel risk us seeing really nasty exhaust/byproducts? Does a fouled cylinder (glow plug, not spark plug, I assume?) or an otherwise poorly tuned engine cause the same exponential increase in toxins that a car engine sees?
Again, I'm throwing these out not as a troll, but because these are the hard questions I'll ask myself before buying any such item. I would literally rather stay with the devil I know than wait 20 years for us to figure out the problems with a new substance, so different is itself not an argument for me.
As for the fuel price, 20 or 30 cents a gallon could be a big deal for people. I hesitated buying my first hybrid car (a civic) last year simply because the car's features were too stripped down and the car carried a price premium that'd cost me 20 years to recover. That's what I mean by *late* early adopter. I'll buy environmental items, but only if it makes good economic *and* environmental sense. If a car is 70% more energy-efficient but the price is so high it'll still take me 20 years to recover the higher cost, I can't afford to change, and will just continue my efforts to drive less and adopt other no-cost ecologically-sound habits.
The biodiesel we'll be producing is not subsidized in any way, shape or form by the US government. The true cost of our biodiesel is (approx) $1.50/gallon to produce and sell and be self-sustaining.
Oh, and WHY IN THE HELL NOT?!
First, it's a bit disingenuous to say you don't pay federal taxes like other vehicle fuels, and then to claim no subsidy. Any economic advantage counts as a subsidy. If not technically, then in spirit.
Second, if you're creating local jobs and allowing fuel production to become local, why on earth are you not chasing for subsidies?! Make a few farmers happy, too, since it gives them another stable market for their crops. Farmers like stable demand and more markets! Besides, then they can buy vehicles that burn their own commodities.
Farming is so rife with federal price controls, federal purchasing programs, income tax breaks, sales tax exemptions and incentives and subsidies that I doubt you can completely claim you're not subsidized, anyway. It's just too byzantine a system. So, again, you don't have to push for more subsidies, but don't hide from them. Personally, I say use the system and lobby for subsidies in the name of apple pie, farmers and the good old US of A. Embrace the horror! Get that biodiesel price down another dime and let some farmer buy another gasoline-guzzling SUV with the profit he makes off your biodiesel (now that'll be ironic). But successfully competing in the whole market, flaws and subsidies included, is the only way to see widespread (not just 5-25%) adoption.
According to the US EPA (http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/fuels/altfuels/b iodiesel.pdf) Biodiesel compared to regular diesel:
- 50% reduction in carbon monoxide output
- 70% reduction in particulate (black smoke) output
- 40% reduction in total hydrocarbon (THC) output
- 100% reduction in sulfate emissions
- 9% increase in nitrogen oxide
- 0% change in methane emissions
I was incorrect in an earlier post. Federal and state taxes combine for $0.45/gallon. So if we're selling B100 for $1.50/gallon, our users will end up paying about 22 or 23 cents a gallon extra in taxes (once a year, for reasons I won't get into here). The total cost is, with state taxes, Approx $1.72/3 per gallon.
The cost of diesel here ranges between 1.65-1.85/gallon, so we're still competitive. And that's on an extremely small scale, volunteer operation. As we ramp up we'll reduce costs.
As a side note, a local B100 retailer (Albina fuels, a largish provider here in Oregon) charges $3/gallon for B100 in a 55 gallon barrel (delivered, no cost). They're the only B100 commercial provider in town, though, so they can charge whatever they want. And the $3/gallon is without taxes, either!
Here's some other benefits you (or others) may not have realized:
- Diesel comes from oil, which is safely underground until we dig it up and throw the carbon excess into the air (so to speak). Biodiesel, OTH, is created from carbon already in the cycle. Thus, no "extra" carbon is being put into the system.
- In another post, you mentioned farmers and how they will love (or already do love) biodiesel. Damn straight. Biodiesel can be produced from just about any vegetable oil, which means it can be produced just about anywhere crops can be grown. That means...locally produced fuel. Profits and money stays local.
- You may pay more per gallon, but diesels are capable of great efficiency in terms of MPG. VW's euro-only Lupo supposedly gets 90MPG. The Jetta TDI's over here will do 45-50 MPG (average). What does your car get, in terms of MPG?
I won't pretend that biodiesel is the answer to all our prayers. It's not. I believe that "fuel cells" and such will, eventually, be the fuel of the future. Until then...you can pick up a used diesel vehicle and burn B100. You'll be making a difference NOW, not in 10+ years.
We are NOT subsidized, not in my opinion. No one is giving us money. We've lobbied no one.
That is not to say that we aren't seeking outside funding. Specifically, small and medium sized grants will be our focus during the next year or so. And yes, we will probably start talking to the state ASAP. Road taxes are important, so I don't see the state giving us a tax break as too big a deal. I'd like us to reduce costs elsewhere first.
BTW... It takes a LOT of waste vegetable oil (wvo) to get people where they're going. 24 million gallons of wvo (what UK's ASDA's donut shops produce per year) would supply approximately 80,000 TDI owners who drive 13,000 miles (each) per year.
In case you didn't know, 24 million gallons of wvo is a hell of a lot of oil. I don't think there's enough wvo to supply all the diesel owners out there, even though they are statistically a small percentage of the US population. That being said, it'd be a better use of wvo than dumping it in a landfill or in dog food.
Man I was just thinking about "Fight Club" and the soap....
-- hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Re:Cost of Veggie Oil
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
>a nice thing about fuel cells and electric cars is they let you concentrate the dirty stuff (assuming combustion still is used to create the H2 fuel) at a plant with scrubbers, monitors and more elaborate antipollution measures, rather than using the 'catalytic converter
What you are forgeting about electric cars is that batteries are NASTY for the enviroment. They are full of lead and other heavy metals not to mention acid. They also have a very limited life when used in an electric car. It is kind of like all those "off grid" people that I read about with solar cells and batteries and generators. Not to mention that they have there commute to and from shopping and work I have to wonder if they are not hurting a lot more than helping. From a "Green" point of view I would bet that B100 is is very good for the enviroment.
Actually, lead-acid batteries are quite well recycled. One-shot source from a google search: http://www.ibpstl.com/brind.htm shows around 98% of all lead-acid batteries being recycled. Lead is *worth* something, and it is much easier to melt down old batteries to make new ones than it is to dig up new lead/lead ore. -cajun
Doc: I need fuel. Go ahead, quick, get in the car.
Marty: No no no, Doc, I just got here, okay, Jennifer's here, we're gonna take the new truck for a spin.
Doc: Well, bring her along. This concerns her too.
Marty: Wait a minute, Doc. What are you talking about? What happens to us in the future? What, do we become assholes or something?
Doc: No no no no no, Marty, both you and Jennifer turn out fine. It's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids.
Marty: Hey, Doc, we better back up, we don't have enough roads to get up to 88.
Doc: Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
Imagine the possibilities
by
Nethergoat
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· Score: 5, Funny
And in other news today, McDonalds will be shipping its meat in special "pressmobiles" which will use the shipped product as its fuel - scientists predict heart disease in the U.S. will fall by 25% as a side effect of this new transportation method.
Re:Imagine the possibilities
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TheRealRamone
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· Score: 1
"scientists predict heart disease in the U.S. will fall by 25% as a side effect of this new transportation method.
Hmmm... I wonder what the side of effects of
this would be.
University of Victoria, in BC Canada, already had a Veggie Van fully operational. I think the diesel engine itself is unmodified, but they had a special filtering process so that they could use leftover McDonald's vegetable oil...
use leftover McDonald's vegetable oil...
Wishful thinking AFAIK. When I worked for McD's (12 years ago) their shortening was supplied solid. It needed to be heated to at least 40C just to liquefy it. It would become even more viscous used - and Mcd's really use their oil (I'm sorry if I've reminded anyone out there of the "five enemies of shortening", etc.)
Switching to grease? Finally, dogs will have a reason to chase your car.
Asda (Walmart) doing this in the UK
by
Hieronymus+Howard
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· Score: 1, Redundant
Asda, the UK subsidiary of Walmart, is running it's fleet of lorries on biodiesel produced from waste oil from frying donuts. They produce between 60 to 90 million litres of waste frying oil every year, which is now providing them with cheap fuel.
I just noticed this this weekend, but some gas stations (at least on in the backwoods of Missouri) are starting to carry Soy Diesel as well. These fuels are alot nicer to the enviroment, and are completely renewable. The only question is when is somone going to step up and make the process of making BioDiesel more reasonable from a cost basis? Really, a hydrogen car would be cool and all, but I really dont see that happening any time in the near future, so why couldnt the government put some of that money into making friendlier options to the fuels that we currently use?
And plus, I want my beasty diesel to smell like french fries!:)
Please explain:
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
They have this car and can do about anything with it... install a big-ass engine, lower it, install earth-shattering stereo equipment... and all they come up with is this stupid greasel stuff?
Man... I bet the girls really got the hots for greasel drivers...
I used to work at a small restaraunt
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
We had one of those grease traps out back. A company charged them X amount to take away the grease every week. The funny thing was they started complaining that someone was stealing the grease. This got me to thinking, Why are we paying for them to take this away if it is a valuable product? I can't Imagine a garbageman complaining that someone has been stealing your trash and they don't get to pick up as much anymore.
This occurred to me as well. Corn oil goes for a whopping $7.50 a gallon. Granted, edible oil would probably be of substantially higher quality that what you put in your gas tank.
To your claim that it needs diesel as well, there are engines that run on biodiesel alone. Greasel's FAQ states that diesel has to be used for warmup and shutdown. Perhaps more expensive conversions have solved this with electric fuel heaters and pumps.
-brian
Re:Huh
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
> This occurred to me as well. Corn oil goes for a whopping $7.50 a gallon. Granted, edible oil would probably be of substantially higher quality that what you put in your gas tank.
It occurred to you because neither you nor the parent AC bothered to RTFA, which would have told you that these conversion kits use waste oil from a place like, say, McDonald's or Burger King. Price == 0.00. You filter the waste oil, then use it for fuel.
Idiot. I read the article. Apparently you don't have the common sense necessary to filter out the bullsh*t posted on the Internet.
You think Mickey D's or BK is going to give you anything besides lovehandles and a heart attack? If you had half a brain you'd realize that nobody is going to be giving away something that can be used as fuel.
Why am I replying to an AC?
Re:Huh
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Still no cure for cancer.
Shouldn't you be posting to Fark?
I remember seeing a story on Discovery back in '92 or so about a guy in Maine running his VW Rabbit off of fry grease. Aren't they calling it biodiesel these days? A friend was looking into starting a company that collects grease from restaurants and purifies it to create biodiesel, but found that the grease collection biz is pretty cutthroat. It's not as easy to get your hands on spent fry grease as you might think!
Biodiesel is not exactly the same as cooking oil. You add sodium methoxide (sodium hydroxide and methanol mixed) to break the triglycerides in oil into glycerin (which is removed) and methyl esters which are simpler chains than the three pronged (think E shaped) triglycerides.
He he he... I think someone here might've posted about this guy already.
Look at the Reply titled "McNugget-powered Volkswagen Rabbi"
It's got a +5
--
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
Traffics gotta stink
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
And I mean that literally. Can you imagine being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic behind some guy who just topped off his tank at Jack-in-the-Box. Or, how about the poor souls who live next to some of the highways that are forever like parking lots. I think I'd rather have the gas exhaust/.
To all those saying this has been done before
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Crasoum
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· Score: 5, Informative
Read the Faqs, one of the first questions says..
Did Greasel discover that diesel engines will run on cooking oil?
No. The first diesel engines (invented by Rudolf Diesel in the late 1800's) were actually designed to run on plant oils. Immediately after Rudolf's untimely demise, his colleagues (who were just then tapping the resources of petro-based fuel sources) swept his veggie ideas under the rug and actually converted his design to run on petro-based 'diesel' fuel (which they were nice enough to name after him).
Blarg
PS the puns on the greasel site are pretty lame...
Re:To all those saying this has been done before
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ansonyumo
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
I think the general gripe is that/. is posting old news. Must be a slow day.
Re:To all those saying this has been done before
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Surak
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· Score: 1
So it's entirely likely that Rudolf Diesel was killed off by big oil interests?
In other news, psychic experts claim that Rudolf Diesel was actually reincarnated as an Iraqi Baath party leader...
Re:To all those saying this has been done before
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bd32322
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· Score: 1
Diesel invented the constant pressure cycle (diesel cycle).. he didnt invent or design the actual engine.
The actual engine came much later.
This isn't new
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maddskillz
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· Score: 2, Informative
This has been done before, but it's cool that other are trying it too. There are some great links to Biodiesel sites too. It's nice to see some people trying to take some baby steps, towards environmentally friendly vehicles, instead of just trying to go straight to the top, as is the case with hydrogen powered vehicles, which are great, but too expensive
This is OLD news dude
by
madmarcel
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· Score: 1, Informative
<> I've posted comments about this subject before...so I'll just repeat myself..AGAIN:
<long rant>
1) This has been talked about before. This is VERY old news. Remember the article about the motorcycle that ran on 'bio-diesel' a while ago? (E-cycle or something or other...they must've had a LOT of marketing weasels;^)
2) 'Greasel'? Hmm...they must have a marketing weasel. Commonly known as 'bio-diesel'. There are a variety of oils that can be used as bio-diesel, some of which ARE liquid at 'normal' temperatures.
3) There was a student on/from some pacific island, who figured out that you could run diesel cars on coconut oil. The difference was that with the local ambient temperatures he didn't have to worry about heating and keeping the coconut oil fluid. (and he was never heard from again...)
4) There was a guy in Europe about 10 years ago who also had cars running on bio-diesel..I can't remember what kind of vegetable oil he used, I think he extracted it from some weed/plant. There was talk of growing the weed/plant (koolzaad?) commercially...but he was never heard of again. Happens to all these geezers who come up with the idea of running cars on bio-diesel - funny that... (No conspiracy here, sorry, probably just lack of funding, lack of commercial interest.)
5) I glanced over the article, but eh...wouldn't you need to filter the 'greasel'? BTW most grease from deep-fries can be recycled. There are companies here that do it. (here not being US:)
6) The one thing that I did NOT see mentioned on that website (after a quick glance at the FAQ):
CARS THAT RUN ON biodiesel/greasel STINK! Well, so I heard anyway...I've read articles that describe the smell from the emmissions somewhat similar to the smell of fried donuts.
Cleaner emmissions? yes please, but I'd say you'd get pretty fed up with the smell after a while. (Imagine being stuck in a traffic jam behind a car that runs on bio-diesel;P)
Having said all that, bio-diesel is probably the most suitable replacement for petrol in my opinion, as it requires little or no change to the existing petrol-delivery infrastructure all around the world. Nobody will get fired, no expensive changes to petrol-stations...perfect. Although I'm pretty sure you could cook up some homebrew bio-diesel in your backyard and put the petrol-companies out of business;)
</rant>
Wheh...time to go and put my fingers in some cold water;^)
Re:This is OLD news dude
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thebigmacd
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· Score: 1
There is a whole section in the FAQ about filtering, and how glycerin clogs the filters.
Re:This is OLD news dude
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
re: the coconut oil
The islanders on Bougainville kicked the owners of several mines out, and have re-taken over their island, and don't allow the PNG(I think) government, or many other people, access to their island.
The remaining vehicles on the island have been converted to run on coconut oil and un well.
also, I've been nearby a vehicle that ran on recycled vegetable oil. It had a very light french fry smell to it, that was nothing like a stink; it did make me hungry however =)
bio-diesel fuels with methanol added to make them palatable to an unmodified diesel engine nay smell different though
Not literally, like refuelling=going to the john, but for processed human wastes. bio methane is commonly used for fuel in rural areas. maybe the digesters would be too large and heavy to be mobile.
I remember seeing something like this around 7 years ago on that old TV show "Beyond 2000". Well, being on that show...I guess it was accurate.
I don't think he used a diesel engine though...can't recall.
Implications
by
smartperson
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Some people may not see the same value in this, but these folks are providing a standardized kit to allow their cars to run on a renewable resource. This needs no further elaboration.
The issue about engine temperature is disheartening, perhaps an inexpensive additive can be developed to thin the vegetable oil to an appropriate viscosity instead of relying on temperature?
Re:Implications
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
bio-diesel is generally just what this is, vegetable oils with an alcohol added; just combine the waste vegetable oil from marcie's burger house with the output of uncle chuck's still and......you might just be a redneck;)
"3/27/2003 - In order to cut down on page loading times, we are slowly converting all General Tech pics that were previously posted right on the page to text links; meaning, you have to click the labeled link to see the pic."
Doing that might have saved their ass's.
cars around here brag about it
by
AssFace
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· Score: 1
Sometimes in my commute I see a VW Beetle that has a sign up touting what percent desiel that it is running. Apparently the less traditional desiel, the cheaper - but the performance goes way down. "Car Talk" on NPR had a caller asking all about it during one show in the past few months.
--
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Smog
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I always cough when I smell car exhaust fumes. I guess now I'll just get hungry.
I notice that they use a triple bypass valve, so now when you've had your triple bypass operation for your heart, because of all the burgers you've been chowing down, you can get a triple bypass for the car, so it matches...
-- Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
This is all very similar to the biodiesel posts a while back. One interesting point, is that this fuel is entirely possible to acquire this fuel independently but, as claimed on Biodiesel.org, running your car on pure vegetable oil is illegal due to regulation from the EPA.
I don't know if you'll feel any better after this but his calculation is done with a UK Gallon to boot. You see 1 hogshead is equal to 63gal(UK) which is ~75.659gal(US).
So in fact, if you were to keep the same types of units (imperial) you'll come up with ~0.001652 miles/gal(US) or ~605gal(us) per mile.
-- Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
here's an article from the guardian.co.uk
by
abhisarda
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· Score: 2, Insightful
This is not Biodiesel. This engine mod runs on straight vegetable oil without any processing other than filtering. Grease is usually too viscous to be used directly but this system preheats it to make it flow better.
--
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
You still need Biodiesel to start and shutoff (preping for the next start) of the car you only switch over to straight veggie oil after you start up on biodiesel. Still very cool to see folks making headway.
First, I did read the article. I chose to comment on Biodeisel because it doesn't require modifications to your car.
The rest of this post is offtopic but I think relevant.
I do however agree that I should not have been moderated +5. It was an experiement, and I was sadly proven correct. When I post real insightful comments they never get moderated up, because by the time I finish writing them there are already lots of the level you and I posted here (crap). So this time I just took the most recent article on Slashdot and posted the first thoughts that came to my mind, no references or elaboration. After a couple short poorly formed paragraphs I pressed submit. This drivel got moved to +5 because it was there fairly early and not obviously incorrect.
What I would like to point out is that Slashdot is not the only place where comments tend to have little substance, and feedback (moderation in this case) also has little substance. While I have done very little research on this I see two possible reasons for the lack of substance.
The first guess at a reason is that the medium (ie the web, internet, pseudononomous posting, etc) causes otherwise rational people to take on the intelligence of monkeys throwing feces at eachother. Maybe this is because there is no link to the real person's reputation. Maybe just becaues the barriers of entry are too low. I'm not sure.
The second guess is that people as a whole are not very intelligent reasonable people. I mean we are the same group that has actually watched Survivor, American Idol, Joe Millionare, The Bachelor, and Austin Powers. We continue to drink and drive. We think that Iraq caused the twin towers to explode. We refuse to open a piece of empty tundra the size of a moderate airport in ANWR to oil exploration because we are going to conserve our way out of foreign oil exploration by buying cars that have ever decreasing fuel efficiency. Meanwhile we buy oil from Canada who pumps it from the same region just across the border. And we all do our taxes on the last possible day. The list of stupid things we do as a society goes on and on, why should Slashdot be any different?
-- Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
-- Business \Busi"ness\, n.; A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
How long before McDonalds takes advantage of this?
by
willll
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· Score: 1
Did you know every time you buy diesel fuel for your car you are supporting terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda with oil money? A new scientific developement allows you to use grease instead of diesel to power your car. You may have already seen this at low-grade food establishments such as Jack-in-the-Box. But why settle for low-grade grease? Fuel your car direct from the grease master: McDonalds!
McDonalds: Smiles starting at just $.50 per gallon.
This is just one of the many ways you can run a diesel engine on vegetable oil. Personally, I would rather not use this method, but the one that involves you making biodiesel. (See www.biodiesel.org).
You can also get a good book explaining the process. I recommend:
I read through the Discover article when the print magazine came out a few weeks ago, and the science definately seems in order. The fact that they have a pilot plant ready to start operation is also a big plus in the 'legit' column.
And this should have a much bigger environmental impact than standard 'biodiesel' or 'vegetable oil vehicle' projects. If all goes well, we might even be able to stop sucking oil out of the ground in a few decades.
McNugget-powered Volkswagen Rabbi
by
BigBlockMopar
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· Score: 5, Interesting
People have been making "Biodesiel" for years now. This is nothing new. A little lye and some vegetable oil is all it takes.
That's not even necessary.
I worked at a McDonalds in high school (about 1991), and one of the maintenance guys had an old (even then!) mid-1970s VW Rabbi (someone chiselled off the T for the fun of it) which was running on used shortening.
Actually, the guy was bright and knew a lot about cars, though he had no formal education. He built a system into an old gas can which rested on a "hot plate" heated by engine coolant. McDonalds filters their oil every day, and on those days on the schedule when it was being replaced, he'd just run it through the McDonalds filtration pump and into the gas cans.
The shortening would thicken, but when he was driving, he'd wait until the engine was warm and the oil was liquid, then throw the valve over to run it off the shortening. The fuel line was a copper tube taped against the lengths of copper plumbing pipe carring the hot coolant to the "hot plate" in the cargo area of the hatchback. Running out of fuel was no big deal - when the engine started to sputter, he'd flip the valve back to diesel off his regular tank, then at the next stop, he'd swap the gas can sitting on the hot plate. The pickup tube was hacked into the cap of a gas can, so the car sucked the oil right out of the gas can.
Riding in that car with him from Ottawa to Toronto (for a Ramones concert) in the dead of winter, I found only two small problems. One, the interior of the car was damned hot because of the hot plate. Two... the car - and I mean *the whole car*, from interior to exhaust - smelled like Chicken McNuggets. Sometimes, Filet-O-Fish.
On the other hand, the fuel was free, it was filtered with McDonalds specially-designed oil-filtation equipment and never seemed to cause him a problem with fuel filters, and my 340-4bbl Duster was getting about 8 miles per gallon... so I envied the utility but declined his offer to trade for my Duster.
What is interesting is that it is still cheaper to buy real desiel than vegetable oil. Where biodesiel has an advantage is in recycling used vegetable oil that is no longer food quality but is with a little work good enough to burn in your car/airplane. Unfortunatly there is not enough of this to make a real dent in the American desiel usage.
This is true. Actually, the cost advantage isn't so great, when you figure that your time is worth something. Rather than scouting out restaurant dumpsters (which are pretty unpleasant places), you could be doing something more fun like getting fellatio or posting to Slashdot.
In his case, though, it was win-win since he was already gonna smell like McNuggets at the end of the day.
On the other hand, virgin vegetable oil could be a highly viable fuel. But the problem is that the very same people who jump up and down and scream about how nasty petroleum is, also jump up and down and scream about how nasty genetically modified corn and soy (which is the only way to make this economically viable) is. The best line I've ever heard came from a Greenpeace activist driving a sick little moped (blue clouds of poorly-tuned two-stroke, measurably more noxious than the exhaust from any well-tuned land-yacht SUV that he also complained about) screaming about how we can't feed cars while people are starving in Somalia. (If Somalis don't want to starve, they should have less children. Sorry, but it's not my problem.)
Re:McNugget-powered Volkswagen Rabbi
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If Somalis don't want to starve, they should have less children. Sorry, but it's not my problem.)
..or we could ask western minerals/oil companies to stop giving arms/money in exchange for land lease promises..
You know you're hillbilly when...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I've got a BMW M3 that I'm running on a concoction made from cow manure, turkey dung and yak butter. It actually smells better than you'd think, it's just that I can't seem to get any dates since I've converted to my new "magic" fuel.
Repost and works for me!
by
Madd_Hatter
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· Score: 1
Hey, last summer around this time you guys posted an article that was almost like this except it was for the other grease car conversion kit company GreaseCar. Anyway I started doing some research on the subject and became sold! Thanks somewhat in part to/. I've got a mint condition 1975 Mercedes Benz (bought on eBay) running on grease for almost a year now! I highly recommend doing this. The conversion was easy and the power of grease is amazing!
If grease ends up costing as much as gas...
by
Joey7F
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· Score: 1
Over the weekend, I had a buddy (who is an out of work airline mechanic) tell me that you could run home heating oil in a diesel car unmodified. He also made the claim that it would not damage the diesel engine either.
It's basically kerosene as he explained it and that they bust truckers using it instead of diesel fuel by checking the coloring of the fuel. This is done because of the taxes of gasonline.
He said it would be simple to get a pump and load your car from home. It would be safer as diesel is harder to light than gasoline. Buying it during the summer would be the time to get the biggest savings compared to gasoline.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question105.htm says that kerosene is in the C12 to C15 range, followed by diesel fuel and heavier fuel oils (like heating oil for houses).
I thought he was full of it, but now I'm not so sure. Ok well, I'm sure he was full of it, just not about this anymore.
I believe heating oil and diesel are pretty much the same thing. The difference is primarily legal, in that it's illegal to run heating oil in a vehicle because fuel taxes have not been paid on it, hence the different dye coloring to distinguish them..
Been Done: Maui Fryer Oil All Gets Reprocessed
by
cmholm
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· Score: 1
Pacific Biodiesel set up a reprocessing plant next to the Maui County dump a couple of years back. Now the dump gets the equivalent of a few pounds of Nutragena (tm) as processing waste each week, while the rest of the fryer oil powers County trucks, many of the tour boats, and a few intrepid Volkswagen owners.
-- Luke, help me take this mask off... Just for once, let me butterfly kiss you with my own eyes.
Re:It's already been done..kyoto
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cashisking
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· Score: 0
What would expect from a country that signed onto the Kyoto agreement?
Re:How long before McDonalds takes advantage of th
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BigBlockMopar
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· Score: 1
McDonalds: Smiles starting at just $.50 per gallon.
Not gonna happen. They don't produce enough waste oil per restaurant to make it worthwhile.
You might start to see a waste hauler become enterprising, invest in some filtration equipment and start selling it, but I think the road tax issues might become too complicated to make it worthwhile for him. In Ontario, Canada, gas is going for about $0.70/L right now; about $0.40/L of that is taxes to pay for silly things like the Canadian Recording Artists Association and the new monument to King Jean Poutine in Shawinigan. (Once upon a time, gas taxes were high but used exclusively to build and maintain roads. It was truly a user-pay system, and Ontario had the best highway system in the world. Then we had a socialist (NDP) government who ran up the debts and decided that it was more important to support dubious lowest-common-denominator causes rather than the infrastructure which made our economy boom.)
Besides, there really aren't all that many diesel cars out there, certainly not up north here. Not only do car buyers usually avoid diesel cars because of noise, vibration and (usually) slow performance, but up here they're a bitch to start in the winter - and that's before you start to add less-than-optimal fuels into the system.
People seem to be complaining that vegetable oil costs more than regular diesel fuel. That's probably because there isn't enough supply of, for example, soybeans to process into soybean oil.
Why the "shortage" (at least as it pertains to use as a fuel)? Because soybean prices are terrible, so farmers lean toward producing something they can make more money at (corn, livestock, etc.)
Provided this starts to take off, there could be a higher demand for soy-based oils for fuel sources, thus encouraging more farmers to produce more soybeans, and with more supply to match the demand, pricing would stabilize, if not come down (depending on the amount of increased soybean production).
Note: all of the above could also be applied to corn and the production of Methanol as a fuel additive insted of synthetic chemical additives.
The prices aren't too bad right now. I haven't priced it out lately, but Costco used to sell 5 gallon drums of vegetable oil for a bit less than $2.00 a gallon. I imagine that if you buy straight from a distributor in larger quantities than 5 gallons, you could get an even better price.
Still, the 5-gallon drums might be nice. You could carry them in your car without worrying about fumes or spontaneous combustion, and warehouse grocers are almost as common as gas stations (at least in California.)
My dad runs his diesel 4x4 on canola oil ( i think ), when ever he starts it in the morning it smells like a fish and chip shop.
Always manages to make me hungry
Iraq was a mistake?
by
hey
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· Score: 2, Informative
Maybe the invasion of Iraq for the oil was
unnecessary. Next we can invalid a country
for the veg oil.
How about a bus running on Wine?
by
Bowling+Moses
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· Score: 1
"Some of the earlier problems with odour from acetic acid in the emissions were also solved. The fuel used is 95% bio-based ethanol from forestry by-products and, for some periods, wine-ethanol."
I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, but at some point Sweden was importing Spanish wine to fuel some of their buses. I dunno about the acetic acid smell though--yuck.
Not enough crops
by
theedge318
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· Score: 4, Informative
BioDiesel is a great idea, but there is a very good reason why it hasn't taken off. BioDisiel promoters are right about it being great for the environment, but no one is willing to develop it for production (even the very interested VW).
Reason, if BioDiesel were to challenge regular gasoline/petrol, it would require a lot of vegetables. While it is true that the U.S. is actually over-producing crops, and thus having to pay farmers not to grow crops. There still isn't enough plants to produce BioDiesel for everyone, even if all of those fields were fully cultivated.
Facts Canada produces 50 mil. tons of relevant crops, and it would only need 10 mil. tons to power a country of BioDiesel cars. However the rest of the world does not have the same grain surplus as Canada, most other countries are at a deficit, and purchase Canada's surplus. The US. production although higher, has smaller surplus levels, and greater demand for combustible products.
-- Sig Nazi- "No Sig for you, come back 1 year."
Re:Not enough crops
by
gpinzone
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· Score: 3, Funny
Yeah, and I'm sure we won't be hated even more as a country that burns food rather than eating it. Etheopians will be screaming "Blood for corn!" instead of oil. Either way, the USA loses.
Nice work. Delving deeper into the veggie petrol, I think we need to consider that the lobby in Washington and, no doubt, in other countries for oil companies is way too powerful to make this kind of switch. As humans we enjoy plundering natural resources at an unrecoverable rate. In less than 150 years the worlds oil reserves will be scarce. I think by the time we are in the ground, people will reconsider veggies as a source of fuel. Solar power!? Whats that? I hate vegatables, but im sure all those vitamins would shave at least a second off my quarter mile.
Also, don't forget that fertilizer for these crops usually comes from... wait for it... oil.
Re:Not enough crops
by
arivanov
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Nope, that is not the reason.
Here is why:
1. In all countries that have reasonable diesel uptake to be interested in BioDiesel the government earns a considerable amount through fuel tax. As a result they are scared shitless of any chance for people to manufacture fuel themselves. A good example is UK where the Customs and Excise department staged ambushes on roads in Wales last year to stop cars that do not smell of abnoxious gasoline fumes and require them to immediately present a document that proves that their fuel has paid fuel duty. Any cars that could not prove this on the spot were impounded. Considering that in the UK you do not even need to carry a driving license with you to drive you can judge by yourself how scared the treasury is. It is the same as with the use of natural gas. The UK government has done anything in their power to make sure that the uptake of that one is only token and very low and is done in a way that cannot use household gas so that it does not hit their revenue stream.
1.1. To add to 1, despite the fact that Biodiesel has a flash point of 300 degrees plus and is as safe to handle as fuel can get government still classes it as car fuel for storage purposes so that people who can buy bulk cannot store it (UK has an ancient wartime law that prohibits the storage of more then 20l of petrol outside a car fuel tank without a license).
2. Biodiesel is manufactured at the moment largely from recycled oil that will have to be disposed of (usually burned) because it is an extreme environmental pollutant. To produce Biodiesel stuff is filtered through HEPA and some of the more obnoxious soluble impurities are removed by running it past an absorbent. It is also usually dried from excess water. In civilised countries the food producers (including the ones that produce bulk rate bakery and supermarket foods) are required to dispose of the oil in a legit manner. AFAIK at the moment less then 0.001% is used.
-- Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Where do you get 150 years from??? Shell has the longest estimate of all the oil companies and they only give the oil reserves 17 years of viable life. After that the oil no longer comes out of the ground and it becomes much more expensive to extract it. Some of the other companies only estimate 10 years. Iraq will only give us an extra 4 years.
Every one hear wants to joke about biodiesel but it is a way forward. I would rather that we did not rely on the arabs for our fuel. The previous post is wrong to think we could not be more self sufficient. It would take a lot of change but I think it would be worth the change. It would only be specialist fuels that would require arab oil if we grew our own fuel.
-- I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
True, but maybe the point isn't to COMPLETELY replace petroleum, but to replace part of it. I'm sure that even replacing 10% of the petroleum used for gas would create a huge change in the environmental, automotive and agricultural landscape in the US. These things don't have to be absolute, just as not all paper used has to be recycled to make a big difference in the number of trees felled every year.
Re:Not enough crops
by
ChrisK077
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You could say, Biodiesel hasn't exactly taken off, but here in Germany it *is* available. My relatives own a gas station that offers colza (? I don't know if this is the correct English name for the plant, at least a dictionary turned it up) Biodiesel and quite a few companies (for their trucks) and private customers in the region use it.
Admittedly, not many fuel stations offer it - but as far as I can remember there have been no shortages in the past years - for example from Campa Biodiesel
Chris
Re:Not enough crops
by
noeffred
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· Score: 3, Informative
In Austria this is not entirely true. "Bio Diesel" (which was in fact created here) is very popular for agricutlutral vehicles, such as harvesting machines and tractors. Many farmers do nothing but grow crops for the bio diesel production. A Friend of mine runs his car off salad oil which works just as good. You have to add some "normal" Diesel though in either case. Your engine greses a bit faster with these. And not every engine is able to run properly on Bio-Diesel (so some say)
By the way, when a car powered by bio diesel passes by, the fumes smell like french fries. I mean how cool is that!
Re:Not enough crops
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You only burn the oil, the rest can be eaten.
Re:Not enough crops
by
L0J46K
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· Score: 2, Informative
Where did I get 150 years? While I studied Electrical Engineering I took a class called "Energy in Society" and in several documents there was info leading to that conclusion, including info from the Department of Energy. Maybe the number is off by +/- 10%, but 17 years, thats ridiculous. If oil doesnt come from the ground where does it come from? Even ocean rigs get their oil from under the sea floor. I never said we could not be self sufficient, but how many people do you know that give a crap about it.
A good example is UK where the Customs and Excise department staged ambushes on roads in Wales last year to stop cars that do not smell of abnoxious gasoline fumes and require them to immediately present a document that proves that their fuel has paid fuel duty.
In the US the Highway Patrol routinely test large diesel truck fuel when doing traffic stops or at weigh stations. Over-the-road diesel fuel has dye in it, heating oil and farm/marine diesel does not, and anyone caught with undyed fuel faces a big fine and possibly other penalties.
A friend of my dad's had a diesel pickup with a 100 gallon tank mounted in the bed. He also had a business removing old home heating oil tanks from houses that had/were converting to natural gas. The stuff that hadn't gone bad got dumped into his tank, he claimed to have not paid a fuel tax in years.
Dad lives in a Grehound-type bus that uses the main diesel tank as its heater fuel source. During long parks in cold weather he will get the tank filled with heating oil instead of driving to a station and filling with taxed over the road fuel. It's usually a wash, since he tries not to get more fuel than he'll need for heating and fills up with OTR fuel as soon as he intends on travelling again.
Just to pick a nit - the #2 fuel oil I burn for heat is dyed a shocking red. They look for the red dye in the truck diesel tanks to indicate use of non-taxed diesel. If the coloration were reversed as you suggested, it'd be much, much harder to tell that there was clear oil mixed with red than red mixed with clear. The dye they use visibly taints the oil at fairly high dilution rates.
-- Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Re:Not enough crops
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
In all countries that have reasonable diesel uptake to be interested in BioDiesel the government earns a considerable amount through fuel tax. As a result they are scared shitless of any chance for people to manufacture fuel themselves.
They are scared shitless of people circumventing their fuel tax revenue stream. There is no reason why they cannot tax bio diesel fuel in the same manner they tax dino diesel. It's not like the present fuel taxes were handed down to the goverment from God himself. The government makes laws and can certainly change them.
As a result they are scared shitless of any chance for people to manufacture fuel themselves. Huh? Why would tax on Gas be different than Tax on BioDiesel? Do you expect people to MAKE their own fuel..? like everyone who makes there own beer and wine instead of buying it...?
is UK where the Customs and Excise department staged ambushes on roads in Wales last year to stop cars that do not smell of abnoxious gasoline fumes Wasnt that because people were running their personal cars on fuel, that skipped taxes in order to aid farmers? like, people cheating on their taxes basically - why wouldnt/shouldnt they do this?
land for which it is not currently economically viable would be called into service. Great, more land use by modern society... why dont we just ride the f123ing bus and save 99% of the oil we use RIGHT NOW?
All land is used for one purpose or another. Some land is "used" for wilderness, providing an aesthetic benefit. It is perfectly reasonable for it to be used for other things if society deems that the other uses provide greater benefit.
How exactly do we save 99% of the oil by riding the bus, anyhow? All this stuff is just killing time before fusion comes around, anyway.
-- If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Re:Not enough crops
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Thought fertilizer was nitrogen (nitrate) based? That's why it makes such an effective explosive!
A good example is UK where the Customs and Excise department staged ambushes on roads in Wales last year to stop cars that do not smell of abnoxious gasoline fumes and require them to immediately present a document that proves that their fuel has paid fuel duty. Any cars that could not prove this on the spot were impounded.
What's your source for this story? Given my understanding of UK law, this is not a power that C&E legally have. They can demand proof that tax has been paid, but they'd have to give you 7 days to do so (similar procedure to requiring you to produce a drivers licence, etc.).
Although there are cases where they could prove at the road side that there was sufficient cause to believe no duty had been paid (eg. if a vehicle's fuel tank was found to contain red diesel), and I think they might be able to do it in these cases.
The UK government has done anything in their power to make sure that the uptake of [gas powered cars] is only token and very low and is done in a way that cannot use household gas so that it does not hit their revenue stream.
If by household gas you mean mains pumped gas, there are technical issues that make it tricky to refuel at home anyway. Besides, LPG powered cars are currently very appealing because of lower duties on LPG than petrol/diesel. (I don't know the taxation levels, but LPG currently costs about 45p/litre, while petrol/diesel are at around the 80p/litre mark). The recently introduced London "congestion charge" offers a discount (or is it an exemption? I can't remember) for LPG or electrically powered vehicles.
That doesn't sound like the government discouraging the use of alternative fuels to me.
One of the major fertilizer components (Called "nitrogen," but really nitrogen compounds) is nitrogen based, but to make the nitrogen available ("fix" it) for uptake it is reacted with hydrogen. In the US hydrogen is usually derived from natural gas.
One of the major US sources of oil is corn, which requires a lot of nitrogen; however, soybeans do not, I beleive, require significant nitrogen. Legumes, such as soybeans, fix their own nitrogen.
Re:Not enough crops
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Hmm. Far more likely (I believe) that the big oil and petrolium companies don't want this to become viable....
How would America recoup their costs of the Iraq war if they can't sell their [Iraqs] oil?
bad choice of name
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Greasels were in Deus Ex! Tasty little green lizardy buggers they were!
Here's something like this ... maybe better
by
BMaximus
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· Score: 0
It's well known that you can run a diesel engine on cooking oil. Just as long as its filtered and you switch back to dino diesel for a cool down before shutting it off. Here's a great site for more info on biodiesel. Veggie Van. I recomend the book that they sell. From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank.
I have seen this for years...it is called biodesil.
--
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This is a real swell way to
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
fuck up your car
Organic oil is safer to spill
by
SlashSim
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· Score: 1
One of the advantages to organic fuels I haven't seen mentioned here is that it's way less damaging to spill them than mineral oil. The company I work for runs heavy machinery and we sometimes work near the ocean. In some cases we will replace the mineral based hydraulic oil in our equipment with canola because if we blow a line and spew gallons of canola into the water it's not as big a deal as it will break down naturaly.
On the other hand a mineral oil spill is a serious disaster and requires getting out the spill kit and a boat and trying to contain it with floating booms which never completely works and wastes hours of time.
-- If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
Re:This is OLD news dude-Greasy entertainment.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
OK Mr Smarty pants did you know I've been running my home entertainment system using Grease?
Unfortunately even plant fuel isn't perfect
by
bluegreenone
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· Score: 3, Interesting
One thing I discovered in my research about energy sources was that even "renewable" energies may not be as beneficial as they first seem. Using vegetable oil to fuel cars sounds great, right, all that energy coming from environmentally friendly plants?
But looking at how plants are grown, you find out that fertilizers and all those other chemicals needed for modern agriculture are PETRO-chemicals, meaning you still need oil to make them. And wherever I read this (wish I could remember) they had done a study and found that natural fuel economies actually used MORE oil than oil economies. Kind of like how electric cars still need to get their energy from somewhere, you are just pushing the pollutants farther upstream in the process.
Needless to say I found it depressing.
Re:Unfortunately even plant fuel isn't perfect
by
norkakn
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· Score: 1
engines are more efficient the larger they are, which is why electric cars are good, it replaces an inefficient (well, in comparison) icu with a really huge one that is more efficient at the power plant
for biodiesel, et al... sounds like a good reason for solar farm equipment and organic farming (with the solar.. the thing is out in the sun all day!, couldn't at least some of this be used?)
Re:Unfortunately even plant fuel isn't perfect
by
let_freedom_ring
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· Score: 1
"But looking at how plants are grown, you find out that fertilizers and all those other chemicals needed for modern agriculture are PETRO-chemicals, meaning you still need oil to make them."
True but you are still reducing your overall need for oil. The energy to produce the crops is mostly coming from the sun, so this is really just a form of solar energy. The fertilizers are just a catalyst for harvesting solar energy. Who knows, in the future genetically modified crops might more efficiently harness sunlight and convert it to more plant oil per acre. I hope there is ongoing research in that direction.
It will be a long time before we see the distributorships carrying "biodiesel" as opposed to good'ol number 2 diesel. The downward pressure that the oil companies could apply to the market would make petroleum diesel cheaper to purchase than biodiesel.
Vegetable oil is not the only option for "alternative" fuels. Offal from poultry can be used to generate gasoline. Does this spell the end of petroleum dependence? Will this increase the popularity of Chick-fil-a [copyright]? Who knows! I at least enjoy having other options.
As a side note, I am prototyping a business model for commercially producing bio-diesel. I'll let you know how it goes!
-- To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Alcohol (hic!)
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Better yet... sometime ago Brazilian Govt invested in an alternative fuel: alcohol! Worked fine, besides some minor nuisances (car took longer to heat up), besides that, it was fine! There used to be more alcohol cars being sold some years ago, but then Govt stopped investing in it (OPEC?). Recently some car manufacturers began making motors that run on both gas and alcohol, any % mixture of them. Since Alcohol costs half the price of gas at stations down here in Brazil, and most gas stations still sells alcohol, this will surely be a Good Thing (TM).
Biodiesel vs the SVO systems
by
Luckster7
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· Score: 2, Informative
This is not biodiesel. Biodiesel will run in any diesel engine w/o modifications. Most of the diesel sold in Europe is or contains biodiesel. Biodiesel is made by taking oil (such as used veggie oil) and mixing it with sodium methydroxide (Lye and Menthanol). The glycerine seperates out and what is left (minus more filtering, called "washing") is biodiesel.
This is often refered to as "SVO" - Straight Vegetable Oil. The Gresel system requires two tanks for starting and stopping on regular diesel. I've seen systems that do not require any diesel. They (simply) involve: 1. Replacing the injectors with ones that have a larger bore. 2. Changing the thermostat to one that stays on to a higher temperatature 3. Replacing the glow plugs with heavier duty ones 4. Installing an electric fuel line heater 5. Installing a heat exchanger
When the engine is cold the electric heater warms the fuel, allowing it to flow through the injectors properly. Once the engine heats up the thermostat shuts off which turns off the electric fuel line heater and the glow plugs. By then the heat exchanger uses the heat from the engine coolant to keep the fuel visocity low. I believe the main difference between this system and what gresel offers is the electric fuel line heater. Once you do the changeover you can still run off of diesel, but you're going to be dumping more fuel in the engine (larger injectors) so your horsepower will go up and your milage down.
-- Deuteronomy 13:06-9
I know a guy who has one of these...
by
YokuYakuYoukai
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· Score: 1
last winter he forgot to switch to regular fuel before he shut it off and it froze solid, he had to light a fire under the engine to get it warm enough to work again.
The best website for info on this and other alternative fuels is Journey to Forever
-- Deuteronomy 13:06-9
Go ahead. Mod me down. I can afford it.
by
BigBlockMopar
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
What does an individual Somialian do if he/she doesn't want to starve? Start killing kids?
Work hard. Get a visa. Come here.
It's like the whole philosophy there is "I can't feed my 5 children, so I'll have another!"
It's not my fault they live in an unarable shithole, it's not my fault they haven't learned any farming or contraceptive techniques from the developed world, and it's not my fault they haven't overthrown their corrupt rulers yet. Hell, it's not even my fault if their religion bans the use of contraceptives.
The smart ones come here. The rest of them can starve with only their own ineptitude to blame. The children? Well, no one ever said that Darwin was pretty.
Sorry, but I've got enough troubles here in the developed "paradise".
Re:Go ahead. Mod me down. I can afford it.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Um. No it's not your fault. But there's something to be said for having empathy for the human condition. When you make comments like those, you just sound like another asshole westerner who thinks everyone in the world has the same opportunity as you do.
You don't know what you're talking about, and you take your enviroment for granted. You have never been "there" and you can't possibly make an intelligent evaluation of their philosophy, their lifestyle, their faults, or their weaknesses.
We don't need anymore close minded, self-centered cunts in the world, so you'd be doing the place a favor by a) Getting rid of your self, or b) Having a change of attitude. -Thanks
Re:Go ahead. Mod me down. I can afford it.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
well you sure told him. i'm sure he won't be able to sleep at night now just like you wont be able to get a job with your arts degree
Re:Go ahead. Mod me down. I can afford it.
by
Descartes
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· Score: 1
I sense the assumption here that if you were born in a developing country you would buck the trend and use contraceptives, etc. I doubt it. You seem to pretty well represent the most ignorant worldview in the culture you were born into, why would you be any different if you were Somali born?
Re:the us sucks
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
wop
alchohol instead
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Does anyone have information regarding running
a car on alchohol ?
( Since the initial post was about an alternative fuel
this isn't completely off-topic ).
Specifically,
Have people done this before ? I heard that
LA ran their buses on it for a while but had to stop because their engines got all hosed up. Was that the only problem ? If it was resolved, would using alchohol instead of gas be economically viable ?
How much does it cost to produce a gallon of
alchohol ?
I heard that there is a tax credit associated with using alchohol for fuel. Is that true ?
Re:How long before McDonalds takes advantage of th
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"You may have already seen this at low-grade food establishments such as Jack-in-the-Box. But why settle for low-grade grease?"
Hey, low-grade? Sure it's not fine dining but when you're short on cash and you're hungry a Jumbo Jack with cheese hits the spot. They have an interesting menu at Jack in the Box. Although, I don't go there because of the prices. It's cheaper to go elsewhere.
Here in the Los Angeles area there are so many fast food joints that they're practically on every corner. Hard to resist them.
Turkey guts & other offal
by
sbjornda
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· Score: 4, Interesting
(tried submitting it earlier but got rejected...)
I tried too with similar results. There's also a briefer on-line description here for those who don't want to look at the paper-based article in Discover - though it really is worth reading. It's worth stressing: The Thermal Depolymerization process can convert anything with a carbon atom into petroleum, safely. Even dioxins. This story should blow the heard-it-all-before "Greasel" story right out of the water. There's no justice on/.
.nosig
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
LetterJ
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· Score: 1
It got rejected because it ran a week or 2 ago. Everybody complains about duplicate stories, but when people get indignant because their submissions of duplicates you end up posting some of them.
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
kfx
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Thats the thing about this process--it doesnt require special equipment in your car, but breaks ANY organic matter into gasoline, light oil (which can be further refined into gasoline), water, and leftover minerals; it can refine leftovers from normal crude refineries, and can refine coal into a clean, fast burning powder. It can also be used just to break down comuters and appliances into raw minerals and metals for reuse. They say the only thing it can't do is nuclear waste, which understandably would still be radioactive afterwards... It is the ultimate in recycling--a clean, low cost way of making useful oil and minerals from useless garbage and junk.
Why people are still talking about running a car on vegetable oil when we can turn vegetables into real (petroleum) oil, I don't know...
" It can also be used just to break down comuters "
There are a couple commuters that I interacted with on my drive home that I'd like to volunteer for this process. Maybe that'll teach the others to put down the phone and DRIVE.
-- "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
It's a fair cop. I searched google for "thermal depolymerization" but I didn't search/. explicitly. Next time I'll know better.
.nosig
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
kfx
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· Score: 3, Funny
While I meant computers, the thermal depolymerization process could indeed convert your average commuter into "38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water." Nothing like running your car on Soylent oil!
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
Foresto
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· Score: 2, Informative
"for those who don't want to look at the paper-based article in Discover"
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
Zemran
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· Score: 1
We could finally have a real use for G Bush...
-- I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
People. ..
People who run on People,
are the luckiest people in . ..the . ..world!
Re:Turkey guts & other offal
by
GnarlyNome
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· Score: 0
Soylent Green for your car..Oh my God where is Grandpa
-- Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
Will Rogers
Photovoltaic BingoFuel Hybrid Car
by
irishkev
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· Score: 1
Photovoltaic BingoFuel Hybrid Car
Establishment science is a byproduct of dominant political and economic interests. (Some people don't like to hear that.) So, what kind of energy systems will emerge under a political and economic order that has been controlled, at least for the last 100 years, by corrupt oil money? Wide adoption of viable alternative energy systems would completely subvert the dominant paradigm (the U.S. imposed global economic and political order) and depose long established elites.
The only way that any paradigm breaking technologies will emerge is if we (average people) build them ourselves. This work must be carried out by the non experts among us, the laymen and the backyard tinkerers because the alleged "scientists" are too busy maintaining the status quo on the road to oblivion.
To wit:
I recently came up with an idea that might allow for the creation of a vehicle that burns no non renewable hydrocarbons (gasoline) and in fact runs on solar power and water.
"Whuuuh?" you ask. Forget about what "CAN'T" happen for a few minutes and keep reading!
!WARNING! I have done NO research on actually building this prototype. In fact, I have no experience at all with high voltage electrical systems, generators, explosive gasses or internal combustion engines. Actually attempting to execute the following ideas may be very dangerous.
And if I had the money, I'd be out right now trying to do this.;)
Let's get down to it:
Hybrid gasoline-electric cars use both conventional gas burning and electrical engines. If you want to know more about how hybrid cars work, see howstuffworks.com for an excellent summary. Hopefully, someone out there has a pioneering spirit, a full workshop and access to, and ability to modify, a Toyota Prius or Honda Insight.
In my opinion, the primary problem with hybrid gas-electric cars is that THEY STILL BURN GASOLINE. My idea is primarily concerned with eliminating the need to use any gasoline at all (or any other filthy, proprietary fuel) in a vehicle that is, for all intents and purposes, extremely well engineered and efficient.
The question then becomes: What type of fuel would the vehicle's internal combustion engine burn?
Passing current through carbon electrodes immersed in ORDINARY TAP WATER produces gas that can power conventional internal combustion engines. See Naudin's incredible demonstration in which he powers a 5 kilowatt Honda generator directly with the gas from his BingoFuel Reactor. Ok, class, pay attention: Look at the specification for the type of fuel required to run that Honda generator. It's supposed to run on automotive unleaded gasoline (minimum 86 pump octane). Yep, that's the same automotive unleaded gasoline that you put in your car, or in those Honda and Toyota hybrids.
Obviously, to get that gas out of the water, current must be passed through the carbon electrical array.
To all of you people out there shaking your heads, mumbling, "This is 11th grade chemistry class electrolysis, this takes too much power," stick with me.
It is interesting to notice that in this test of a 1 cell BingoFuel Reactor, the current used is 81.6 Amperes (see Test#1). With a same value of current used in a 1 cell electrolyser the volume of the of H2 is 36 liters per hour (at 20C). There is 46% of H2 in the synthetic gas genera
Now we need to try running a fuel cell of the BingoFuel reactor.
After all, internal combustion engines of this size are, what, about 20% efficient? Maybe 30? Now funnel the gas into a fuel cell stack that's around 80% efficient when using pure H2, and around 50% on this kind of stuff. You can power stuff off it!
Re:Photovoltaic BingoFuel Hybrid Car
by
robhancock
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· Score: 1
That "closed loop" business is pretty funny - where is the energy to run that coming from? It's effectively the burning of the carbon from the rods! Geez, if you're going to make something to run on carbon, just make a coal-burning car and you'll come out ahead of this.
If you want to make a car that uses solar power, then doing it the conventional way will be much more efficient. You can't make a car that runs on water, because what do you get when you burn the products of electrolysis, or a reactor like that? Water!
I think I'm starting to get the hang of expecting reposts...
Alcohol + driving not bad after all...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Some links to using Alcohol as a fuel: http://www.brasil.terravista.pt/jenipabu/37 86/enal cohol.htm http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/tectra n/336.htm http://www.indiaconsulate.org.br/comerc ial/p_expor tadores_indianos/ethanol.htm http://www.planetark .org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17823/story.htm
People in war ravaged countries aren't starving because they continue to have children in spite of their present conditions, they're starving because the children ALREADY EXISTED before the latest war/famine started. It is the biggest bunch of BS when people say that the problem comes from having too many kids.
If _you_ have a time machine and see that your job is going to be destroyed in a civil war in 7 years you can choose not to have a child, but people without the time machine can't retroactivly not have kids once the unforseen political/economic disaster happens.
To summarize: you are being an asshole, and don't understand what you're talking about.
--
every _exit() is the same, but every clone() is different.
People already living in a shithole and unable to feed themselves can, however, decide not to have more children, if they have basic reasoning powers. As the majority of the "starving children" in that region are far younger than the conflict cutting off their food, I'd say it's Darwin in action there.
-- "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Read before modding this down -
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Remember, moderators, you only have so many moderator points before you run out. So, if you mod this down, then I will have won!
I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
BigBlockMopar
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· Score: 1, Troll
People in war ravaged countries aren't starving because they continue to have children in spite of their present conditions, they're starving because the children ALREADY EXISTED before the latest war/famine started. It is the biggest bunch of BS when people say that the problem comes from having too many kids.
Sure. Even without wars, Somalia is overpopulated. The famine exists because the land isn't arable with their prehistoric techniques and arguable not even with the modern techniques like field rotation which they have judiciously decided to ignore despite it being common knowledge in the civilized world.
Ergo, you have famine. The famine exists because the population is too great for the land to support it. This problem didn't appear overnight.
If _you_ have a time machine and see that your job is going to be destroyed in a civil war in 7 years you can choose not to have a child, but people without the time machine can't retroactivly not have kids once the unforseen political/economic disaster happens.
Okay. So, Somalia has been starving for at least 15 years that I can remember. How about the three year olds?
No one ever said that Darwin was pretty.
To summarize: you are being an asshole, and don't understand what you're talking about.
Must be nice to be 16 years old. The World Is A Special And Wonderful Place. My Parents Are Wrong For Telling Me The I Need To Do My Calculus Homework, Because I'm Going To Be An NBA-Champion Basketball Player, Home-Boy Rap "Artist" And Anime Cartoonist And I'll Fix All The Broken People In Somalia By Hosting Infomercials About The Problem!
Next you're gonna tell me to feel sorry for the people of Bangladesh... yuppers, there's a good place for your future charity to rebuild. The whole country is no more than about 30 feet about sea level, built on the mouth of the mighty and oh-so-beautiful Ganges River. (What's the Ganges River? Two words: India's Sewer.) Why don't you see too many anthills on the beach? Well, the tide comes in every so often...
Nature is ugly. This is just nature taking its course. Grow up.
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
hamanu
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· Score: 5, Insightful
My friend, I come from a 3rd world country and I am probably 10 years older than you. I responded to you because out of the blue, for no reason you included a stupid, ignorant political statement where it had no reason for being.
The problem of starvation is not a problem of farming, it's a problem of economics. Lots of countries have crappy farmland, but aren't starving, take any mid-east oil producer as an example. The 3rd world economy isn't ruined by too many people; it's ruined by civil wars, and unstable government.
It must be nice to think you're mature and superior because you don't care about the value of human lives lost thousands of miles away, and like to point it out for no reason whatsoever.
BTW Darwinism doesn't apply in this case (since the people born in bad conditions are disadvantaged, not inferior), and you make yourself look like a jerk by bringing it up.
--
every _exit() is the same, but every clone() is different.
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
Gojira+Shipi-Taro
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· Score: 1
The people being born may not be inferior, but their parents are making a STUPID choice by breeding under those conditions. Hence the Darwin reference. Stupidity tends to weed you out of the gene pool. Refrain from breeding until conditions are better, and your genes have a chance. Breed like rabbits when you cant even feed yourself, and you and your children will starve.
-- "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
MechaStreisand
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· Score: 1
The point is, though, that it doesn't matter WHY they are starving... it only matters that they are, and they're still having kids knowing full well that they can't feed them. This kind of foolish behavior is the reason this is their own fault. Why shouldn't they take responsibility for their own actions?
It is Darwinism because those people stupid enough to have kids in those conditions will be unable to feed them and they will die. It sucks to be them, but that's what happens when you try to live beyond your means. If you're starving, don't have kids.
-- Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
WetCat
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· Score: 1
The opposite is true: breed as much as possible, may be one or two offsprings of you survive and find a way to better life...
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
azav
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
You never took a Biology of Populations course now did you?
Didn't think so.
-- - Zav
- Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
Gojira+Shipi-Taro
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· Score: 1
You're presuming the content of such a course is valid in all situations. Here is a simple FACT of nature. Have more children than you can support, and you starve. I don't need a liberal bleeding-heart college course to figure that out. Every species of animal in Africa can figure that out. Except, apparently, for Man.
-- "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Jordan actually doesn't have an oil.
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Iraq has enough farmland in the delta of its two major rivers with two problems.
1. Rivers depleted due to Saddams ornimental fish ponds.
2. Agricultral ministry salshed and burned.
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
azav
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· Score: 1
That is exactly the point of a course in biology of populations. There is this thing called a "carrying capacity" for an area of environment. It is how many creatures of a species it can support. Exceeding it will result in exactly that, death, disease and starvation.
The moron who said "breed as much as possible" virtually guarantees death, disease, starvation and misery. Having less children allows the parents to divert thir resources to their upbringing rather than spreading them over more kids, giving each less. One more reason why overpopulation is bad.
Love it. I get flamebaited by someone who probably doesn't even know what biology of populations is let alone actually took a course in it.
-- - Zav
- Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Re:I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it.
by
astafas
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· Score: 1
There are a bunch of reasons. For instance, the infant mortality rates have been curbed by modern medicine, but the people still have large numbers of kids. Used to be this was offset by only a few making it, but now a lot more do, and the culture hasn't had a chance to adjust to this yet.
Another reason for the starvation is that some fast food chains buy out the prime farmland in some third world countries to grow food for their cows, which will make burgers. The undesirable farmland is left to grow food for the populations. Greenpeace was saying this in the 80s and got sued by one of the fast food companies, but were able to show evidence of this in court that more than 50 percent of world hunger was caused by the major fast-food company of the time.
Hemp
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I prefer hemp to run my cars. http://www.hempcar.org/
What they don't tell you....
by
kevlar
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· Score: 1
Is the impracticality of the whole thing. For example, starting a grease car is a royal pain in the ass. First you need to heat the fuel line so that that grease flows before you can even attempt to hit the ignition. I can only imagine what other kinds of problems this produces...
If you are satisfied with driving at and below 3000 rpm go ahead and drive your veggie oil car.
There are problems with high viscosity fuels for high speed compression engines, foremost of which is the fact that the fuel will ignite late. So when the RPMs go high, fuel starts entering the cylinder but doesnt ignite until maximum compression by the piston. This creates a sort of explosion of a lot of fuel (not desirable) instead of a steady pushing burn (desirable). This causes less power to go to the wheels and more power to vibration or diesel knock. This problem becomes worse with higher RPMs.
That is why ships use high viscosity diesel fuels because they have slow speed engines and aircraft and cars (and aircraft) use petro-diesel fuels, because these ignite faster.
(remember that show from the late 70's?) showed a guy in doing this ages ago, 1978 I think. It's amazing how this technology is pulled out every few years to see if anyone is ready to run their car on frier grease. Once again I file it under "Wow, that seems like a real pain in the ass."
If a tone of people start doing this they are going to find the veggie oil costs a HELL of a lot more than diesel. (Anyone ever price out biodiesel?)
Commercially-produced biodiesel is indeed more expensive, 2-3 times more than petro. Running a small co-operative is one thing. True commercial production is another -- you have equipment costs, plant safety/environmental standards that have to be met, etc. There are taxes to collect. And there are administrative costs associated with all of this.
So it's a far cry from a few 55 gal. drums in your backyard -- although you could do that and share with a few friends if you wanted to. It wouldn't make sense for most people, but for farmers, fishermen, etc., who use lots of diesel it might.
There are also used oil burners too. You can do a google search if interested.
The primary problem with all of these things is there isn't exactly enough fuel to go around. Sure there will be a niche market, but there isn't enough fuel in mass to really serve the populous.
I just can't wait to install my new Mr. Fusion though. It makes BioDiesel and Used Oil burners look like a match.
-- "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
No!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I want all of that grease to go to my Ultimate Cheeseburger!
WVO 'Vette of Deluxeness
by
stealthman
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· Score: 1
Here is a friend who has installed the Greasel kit in his '82 diesel chevette in Seattle:
http://tharsis.ubertechnique.com/vette/. He runs his 'vette on waste vegetable oil (WVO) from places such as chinese restaurants and donut shops. Donut oil is apparently the "elusive grail". (Since it requires the least filtering?) He has lots of (often funny) detail about his experiences. CNN even aired his story.
One of the greatest challenges WVO powered vehicle owners face is finding a reliable supply of oil. There is a critical mass of users needed in order for it to become economical to collect and redistribute WVO. Until then, the users will have to spend time finding and bargaining for the oil and rely on their ability to charm restaurant owners into letting them have their waste oil.
This has been done before, I think...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I recall seeing a a news segment in the late 80s, where a guy modded his A1 VW (an early 80s Rabbit diesel) to run on french fry grease/oil. He said the exhaust smelled like a fast food place.
IIRC, he initially got the waste grease for free, but for whatever reason he started getting shooed away from the fast food places when he kept coming around to filler up. Perhaps the connection between fueling a stinky diesel and a key fast fast food ingredient wasn't particularly desirable to various burger joints...
Throwing stones while living in a glass house
by
Jimithing+DMB
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· Score: 1
The best line I've ever heard came from a Greenpeace activist driving a sick little moped (blue clouds of poorly-tuned two-stroke, measurably more noxious than the exhaust from any well-tuned land-yacht SUV that he also complained about) [...]
Let me guess, same type of person who throws paint on someone's mink coat while wearing a leather belt and aligator skin boots?
More interesting article in the NY Times
by
greenfield
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· Score: 1
This is an interesting news piece. It was even more interesting when I read about it this morning in Tuesday's New York Times Science Section in an article by Chris Dixon. Was this submission an original idea or just inspired by the NY Times article?
--
--Sam
Oil forever?
by
uglomera
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· Score: 2, Interesting
So we get all the organic waste and turn it into useful organic stuff. This means oil is here to stay, and get cheaper, so the air is not getting any cleaner. I thought we didn't want to use oil forever!
The idea is that the "oil" used in this process is part of a closed loop. Think of it this way: plants absorb carbon, turkeys eat the plants, turkeys get turned into oil, oil gets burned, carbon returns to atomosphere. What we do now amounts to digging up carbon and putting it into the atomosphere.
Well, this is slightly better than drilling for oil.
When we burn naturally occurring fossil fuels, we add more carbon to our biosphere, when we use this new process, we are using carbon that is already circulating around our biosphere.
Keep in mind that the elements that make up recently living organic stuff comes from the atmosphere, plants, etc. The carbon dioxide you burn with biodiesel (or SVO) goes back into the plants to make more biodiesel. The carbon dioxide from petroleum (e.g. pressurized dinosaurs and plant material) has been locked in the ground for ages, and adds to the amount of greenhouse gases.
...are you saying that we will be required to scale our consumption to our generation (growing stuff) vs. pumping a surplus out of the ground? although we can maintain the oil-economy, we are going to scale back - and *that* is where we realize a solution to our environmental-unsustainability issue?
Ahem... may I please direct your attention to http://www.hempcar.org.
Ibentold that you can get more biofuel from corn than from hemp... HOWEVER, hemp grows much faster than corn. Therefore...
Makes you wonder what the drug war is really about.
Pervert the dominant paradigm.
Re:Why is Hemp illegal???
by
outsider007
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· Score: 1
maybe because you can't get high from smoking corn?
-- If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Re:Why is Hemp illegal???
by
MossyKnoll
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· Score: 1
Are you suggesting that one can get "high" from smoking HEMP? That's news to me.
Apparently the confusion between hemp and marijuana still persists in some circles. I'm assuming that you actually believe hemp and marijuana are interchangeable terms. They are not.
That myth was born of the "reefer madness" campaign in the late nineteen thirties because rich industrialists saw hemp as a threat to petroleum, timber, and chemical industry profits. The Dupont brothers figured strongly is that misinformation campaign.
Not all of us who believe that hemp is a wonder crop are unproductive stoners who spend all day on the couch pining for marijuana legalization.
Although, if you'd like to debate the misinformation surrounding that drug, I'd love to take you on.
Pharamcology and public policy never even shook hands in this country (and I'm quoting someone else, here).
Oh... and by the way; I've never tried smoking corn. I'm afraid of getting the popcorn kernals lodged up my nostrils.;)
Re:Why is Hemp illegal???
by
outsider007
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· Score: 1
That myth was born of the "reefer madness" campaign in the late nineteen thirties because rich industrialists saw hemp as a threat to petroleum, timber, and chemical industry profits. The Dupont brothers figured strongly is that misinformation campaign.
thank you for taking some time out between bong hits to enlighten us all about your paranoid fantasies.
-- If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Hahahaha! someone mod this up
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
he's 100% right
Yes Nature is ugly but we can try!!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I understand exactly what you are saying but I believe the US could make the situation better in the starving countries. You obviously were very lucky to have been born in the country that you were born in. These people are of course ignorant of the outside word. Yes we should feel bad about these places, in the third world how about places like China. Repressive governments cause problems for people, the people of china work very hard, but countries like the US use them for cheap labor, their situation is not great. Let me guess it is their fault that the US corporations are able to make them choose between a crappy live or no life at all. If you consider how big of a tax cut the US government is giving, you'd realize that sum of money could help starving children by not only giving food but education. People must know how to farm and how to build their country before they do. I do not think we can solve every problem, it is inevitable there are those who have and those who do not, it is the nature of existance. But we should count are selves as lucky to have been born among those with and should try to aliviate(sp) the suffering of our fellow man. There is a difference between poor and dying, it is our responsibility to try to minimize the death. It is quite clear that those who are too idealistic fail to understand the simple reality of the world but we can change the world and should. While evolution holds humans are unlike most animals in that the factors involved in humans magnify the effects.
Terminology and biodiesel production
by
whookey
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· Score: 1
Biodiesel is vegetable oil which has been through the process of transestrification, which strips the glycerin out of the oil, leaving a diesel-fuel-like substance which can be run in an unmodified diesel engine.
here's more information. This article is about Greasel (the fuel), a slang term for vegetable oil which is being used as a fuel directly by using slight vehicle modifications with a kit such as Greasel (the kit).
In fact, a large amount of biodiesel is currently being produced both commercially and independently from both virgin oil and waste oil. biodiesel.org will help you find a pump near you. Biodiesel is not oversubsidized to the extent your petroleum fuels are, but even at its larger price ($2.77/gallon at my local pump) is gaining wide popularity. WVO (waste vegetable oil) powered vehicles are still in the domain of dorks like me and the Greasel guys.
My good friend Liz has been taking all kinds of permaculture classes and what not at Pomona College here in California. Well, one day they had these guys in a big cool bus talk to them about how to make your own diesel fuel. They all hopped in, drove to a fast food place, got a bunch of oil, drove back, and started making a bunch. Apparently these guys travel around and give talks... all while powering their bus on either pure or mostly biodiesel fuel.
After she told me about this, I was, of course, totally fascinated, as I'd never heard of such a thing before. I looked for instructions on Google and found some very interesting info. If an engine is going to be running biodiesel, some changes have to be made. Many say that a totally necessary change is replacing all rubber hoses and stuff with items made from another material. Biodiesel rots rubber over time. Also, one should tune their engine a little differently. Apparently all French diesel vehicles made past a certain year are biodiesel ready... minus some minor tuning because all their diesel is already a certain percentage biodiesel... as required by a law (please correct me if this is inaccurate). Apparently, many other European countries use a percentage of biodiesel in their petrodiesel as well.
I simply cannot find the exact page I originally learned this all from... but you can still search away!
I found this nice page about modern biodiesel usage in Europe by typing "biodiesel france percentage" into Google.
LOTS AND LOTS of biodiesel stuff online. This stuff really has a future, it's not just a hippy thing.
--
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
What a coincidence...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Incredible! The NY Times must have seen this Slashdot posting and sent a writer back in time to steal the Greasy Scoop before last night's deadline!
Brave submitter i22y ought to write the Times an angry letter demanding they acknowledge their sources! You can threaten to expose their evil time-traveling-./-reading plot if they don't!
This is true we can't grow enough for everyone to burn biodiesel, but there is the capability for the farmers to grow enough to be able to deal with the US's 15% that we import from the middle east. Use the waste matterial and surplus crops to be able to break our dependency on their oil and give them the big middle finger for every time they played with the prices. It won't take long for them to see how much of their oil they can eat when we cause the price of oil to plummet and that of crops to climb since all our extra crops will be going to the gas station.
The UK draws a lot of its road taxation from fuel charges. The idea is that the more you drive and the bigger, more damaging vehicle you use the more it hurts.
Why people are still talking about running a car on vegetable oil when we can turn vegetables into real (petroleum) oil, I don't know...
Although I'm quoting the parent, my comment is not directly related.
All of these new fuel technologies - and I include hydrogen fuel, fuel cells, biodiesel, alcohol-based fuels, etc in this comment - are great, and some of them require little modification of the car (diesel engines are quite tolerant of different fuels, while petrol is not so good). Lots of people often wonder why these are not being adopted much more quickly, and why some of the major manufacturers are not already producing models that use these environment-friendly technologies.
One of the biggest factors that is holding back wide scale adoption of these technologies is the infrastructure that is already in place and supplies your car with fuel - the service/petrol stations [insert whatever you call them in your country!]. The cost involved in changing these over to, for example, hydrogen pumps, is absolutely staggering and far outweighs the cost of converting the cars themselves over. This is particularly true in countries like the US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, etc. And, like we all know, money does all the talking so until a solution to this problem is found I can't see the situation changing much.
-- "Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Tax implications
by
slim
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is interesting. A while back a Welsh supermarket noticed that their own-brand vegetable oil was selling in huge amounts, and it turned out that a number of locals were manufacturing biodiesel for their own private use. Biodiesel is manufactured by adding methanol to vegetable/animal oil/grease, which displaces glycerine from the oil and allows it to be used in an unmodified Diesel engine.
The authorities came down on this lot, not because there's anything illegal about Biodiesel, but because once it's engine fuel, it's taxed as engine fuel, and they hadn't been paying the appropriate taxes. With the taxes added on, it's still cheaper than standard Diesel, but not as dramatically so.
However, this Greasel site appears to be about modified engines which run on ordinary vegetable oil, not Biodiesel. So what are the tax implications there? Does the taxman have to rule that vegetable oil is taxable as soon as you put it in a fuel tank? Or based on your intention for the oil at the point of sale? What?
Number 2 fuel oil (diesel fuel) is taxed differently in the US depending on whether it is for home heating, farm equipment fuel, or vehicle fuel. In many cases diesel sold for home use is dyed, and trucks' fuel tanks are inspected for dye. If dye is found, a traffic citation is issued, plus a fine.
The Government tried to stop it (as they weren't getting ther tax off it). However someone pointed out that if the taxed is payed then its legal.
The result - a couple of firms have been set up to exploit this fact - cost to consumers - about 50% the price of diesel!
Tommorows World ran this 'news' a while ago.
by
ahadley
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· Score: 1
This story was run by Tommorows world [a uk science program - not running anymore i think ?] a couple of years ago at least.
It featured just such a vehicle in Japan, just thought i'd mention that this technology has been around for quite a while.
Alex
http://www.greasecar.com has been selling these conversion kits for a couple of years now, for less than $1,000 I think! They've driven across the US powered by grease!
You can read the write-up about their trip at sierra club:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200111/homefront_ printable.asp#Grease
I'd run my car on dupes!
by
Cocoronixx
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· Score: 1
They seem to be alot more abundant than even McD's 'Freedom' Fries Oil! Been there.
Done that.
-- "Obscenity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - cloak42
huh??
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
In this country (UK) several people have already converted their diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. But there's no need for all this heater nonsense, and having to use diesel as well.
All we do is mix some ethanol in with the vegetable oil, and presto, it doesn't solidify or gunk up and your diesel runs beautifully.
The only problem is that to passersby your car will smell like a chip shop has just driven past!
Talking about two different things!
by
jhawkins
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· Score: 1
There are two different things being talked about here:
One (what this story started as) is a diesel conversion kit that you install on your car - you still have a diesel tank that you must fill (much less often), and you add another tank with fry grease. You start the car/truck on reg. diesel (or biodiesel if you're so inclined). Once the engine is warm, you flip a valve, and you will be them pumping SVO as they call it - Straight Vegetable Oil - to your injectors. The SVO must be warmed to flow properly through your fuel system and into the injectors. Running vegetable oil into a diesel engine was designed before running petro-oil into a diesel engine. Not a very new concept, although the people doing this have been on the fringe.
The other, Thermal Depolymerization, is a relatively new process (more precisely, an old process that has recently been improved to make it closer to cost-effective) that takes anything with hydrocarbons, and breaks the molecules down into components, including water, whatever non-hydrocarbon stuff was in the input, and an oil that can be re-distilled into whatever product you want (gasoline, diesel, etc).
There is a third process not directly mentioned here, but the process of making biodiesel. This is accomplished with a vat of fry oil, some lye, some methanol, a mixing apparatus, and time. You mix the stuff up, and get some glycerin, and regular diesel that you can put in your fuel tank for your car, truck, farm tractor, diesel generator, etc. The article I linked says the guy gets about 85% diesel and 15% glycerin from his fry oil, and if he gets the oil for free, the other ingredients work out to 54 cents a gallon, plus his time.
Of course, the majority of us with our gasoline engines, are still stuck with petroleum coming out of the ground, or maybe in the future from the Thermal Depolymerization process.
BioDiesel on the uptake?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I have been hearing alot on biodiesel recently.
1) Click & Clack on NPR had a caller who found a place to buy pure biodiesel delivered to her house in 55 gallon drums. (She drove a way cool VW TDI.)
2) Some investors in NC are trying to create a biodiesel production company. Primarily aimed at local farmers. The articles I read on that, said that business tended to want to burn even a little biodiesel because it lubricates the engine more than regular diesel.
Given that two months ago I had not heard of the term "biodiesel" I'm seeing all of these references to be a sign of an uptick.
You must be joking
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I assume you have spent years in a warzone, and hence are speaking from extensive experience. That can be the only possible excuse for the bloated and arrogant tone of this post.
But then, they say that arrogance is linked with ignorance.
The first thing that gets the chop in any war is infrastructure, which means things can't get from point to point. This includes food. So if you are not living on top of a large farm (and presumably have the means to defend it from marauders), it doesn't matter how arable your bloody country is. If you can't make it to the shops 5 miles away, they may as well be on the moon.
Your failure to credit the people of Somalia with basic reasoning power says far more about you than them. I mean, how dare they not follow a considered family planning routine in the middle of a large scale conflict? I mean, surely they can get contraceptives more easily than food? And with the ordered way the civil war is going, its obvious that rape gangs aren't a problem... I know, why don't they just abstain? I'm sure abstinence from human contact is exactly what the Somalis need. Probably reduce tensions in the area, too...
Stick to computers, twerp.
Perfect for fleets....Re:Not enough crops
by
hellertech
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· Score: 1
Biodiesle would be perfect for urban fleet vehicles, like in NYC, if the Sanitation Dept converted diesle garbage trucks to biodiesle. the DOS could start a profit generating program to pick up waste veg oil for a fee, filter it and then use it to run their vehicles.
I want a bio diesle motorscooter.
People might be interested in the B.I.O. Tour
B.I.O. Tour 2003 is a national public awareness campaign, lead by DJs and activists, to highlight
alternatives to America's fossil fuel addiction. The B.I.O. Tour 2003 team will traverse the United States
this summer in a vegetable oil-powered bus, with a solar-powered sound system, teaching people how to use
vegetable oil for fuel, hosting workshops, giving media interviews, distributing information and co-
organizing dance parties, all in the support of clean, renewable, peaceful energy. Much more information
on the project can be obtained at http://www.biotour.org.
Last weekend I made some of this stuff( Chem Q???)
by
A55M0NKEY
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· Score: 1
I made 2 batches in old mayo jars.
The first batch I made of neat ( unused ) vegitable (soybean) oil. I added the ethanol/lye to the oil which stayed at the bottom. I shook the jar and then the oil ( now converted to biodiesel ) floated to the top.
The second batch I made started with neat ( unused ) hydrogenated vegitable ( soybean ) oil AKA Crisco. I had to melt the Crisco on the stove before adding the ethanol/lye mixture. The reaction happened so fast at the elevated temperature that I am not sure if the unreacted melted crisco would have sunk or not in the ethanol/lye. I do know that the end product sunk in ethanol/lye but still floated in water.
The problem with the batch made from crisco was that it is solid at room temperature. No good for biodiesel. However, since soybean oil is naturally unsaturated, biodiesel made from it is liquid.
There is a problem with using unsaturated fats for fuel - they polymerize into 'gunk' in the conditions found in engines and eventually gum up the works.
Naturally saturated veggie oils tend to be expensive and are also usually solid at room temperature. What is needed is a way to use Crisco as a starting point but somehow shorten the hydrocarbon chains so that the saturated fuel can be liquid at room temperature.
Any chemist out there know how to take a methyl or ethyl ester from the biodiesel transesterification process and shorten the hydrocarbon chain? I've heard of cracking, but that sounds like a high temp/pressure/catalyst sort of process that would tend to destroy or remove the alcohol on the end. Any other ideas?
--
Eat at Joe's.
Wrong on 2 counts
by
DaveWhite99
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Wrong on 2 counts:
1) Natural gas, not oil, is used in making commercial fertilizer.
This is an important point from the USA's point of view, since the vast majority of our natural gas comes from domestic sources and Canada.
2) Most natural fuel does NOT use more (fossil) fuel than it produces (in natural fuel).
Corn-based ethanol is the evil fuel you're speaking of. It is indeed a huge energy sink. The only reason it exists is because of huge government subsidies. Biodiesel, on the other hand, is 78% solar-powered. That is, only 22% of the energy in virgin soybean oil-derived biodiesel comes from fossil fuels.
Also consider that animal waste (pig crap) based methanol can be used in place of natural gas, thus completely removing fossil fuels from the biodiesel equation. However, this is not going to happen until one or both of the following happen:
1) consumers demand environmentally-friendly fuel by refusing to use fossil fuels
and/or
2) the demand for oil exceeds the easily-extractable supply of oil, thus raising the economic costs of extracting fossil fuel high enough to where bio-fuels can compete
Of these two alternatives, (2) is the most likely. Already, biodiesel can purchased for a little over $2/gallon in bulk, state fuel taxes included. I give it another 10 years before the increasing world energy demand outstrips its soon-to-peak supply.
As for myself, I drive a 2002 VW New Beetle TDI, which is in stock form (no fuel mods) and is powered by biodiesel. While the biodiesel is more expensive than regular diesel, the fuel economy of my vehicle is high enough (50 mpg) that I still enjoy fuel savings when compared to my gasoline-powered brethren.
Fryer grease-powered diesel cars are quite popular in the Telluride, Colorado area. There are even entire cable access television shows dedicated to the topic in that area.
--
Re:Yes.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
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let's take a step back
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
ok, so the smart thing to do, i.e., the thing best suited for Darwinian survival of your genes, is to not breed at all? No.
And although it may not be the smartest thing to do, they will have kids. That's what they are living for. Do you know how many families live in poverty in America, supposedly the wealthiest nation in the world? The low end range is 31 million (http://www.epionline.org/report_poverty_04-2002.p df) Should all those families not be allowed to have kids? So that # of children is tied to your income?
Reproduction is not only a fundamental right, it's one of the requirements for defining life.
As for the biology of populations, if you study it, you should also know not take it as gospel as it is a controversial topic. There have been many occasions throughout human history where scientists stated that the earth can only support X number of people. And again and again, they've been proven wrong as human population grows and grows.
c'mon guys, we're lucky to be able to spend all this time reading/. and posting comments, to care more about being up to date on tech news, than about where dinner will come from. how does it gratify you to knock on people who live with nearly nothing, who are trying but have no opportunities?
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
MossyKnoll
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· Score: 1
*snip* thank you for taking some time out between bong hits to enlighten us all about your paranoid fantasies.
*un-snip*
First, a couple of facts; I don't do bong hits. I read books. You know, those things on the shelf with pages between the covers?
And the more I read about history, the more paranoid I do become. In light of current events, I highly recommend Soldat by Siegfired Knappe and Ted Brusaw.
But I'm moving off topic (without drugs even:)
It's also a fact, (not a fantasy) that the DEA is still attempting to ban the sale and import of hemp products on the laughable premise that hemp THC levels classify it as an illicit substance. This is a joke in the scientific community.
Because of the rapid, low maintenance growth rate of hemp, it is possilbe to derive much more useable, processed fuel from hemp (hemp oil or methanol) than from corn.
Hemp oil is what the Hemp Car burns (www.hempcar.org) since diesels are really just oil burners.
Comparisons to corn are frequently used because corn has a relatively fast growth rate.
In other words, hemp makes good economic and ecological sense as a petroleum alternative.
This is why hemp scares the hell outta the petroleum industry. That's not paranoia. That's someone with a lot of financial clout protecting their market share (Why the hell do you think we were invaded by Texas? Sorry. I could't resist a little conspiracy theory humor.)
But, apparently, some people are perfectly comfortable with the energy mafia pulling us by the short hairs at the gas pump, because where the hell else are you gonna fill your gas tank?
That is what biofuel is all about. NOT being owned.
But you don't have to believe us paranoid bookworms. This information is well documented.
I'd recommend starting at www.jackherer.com.
As for my paranoid fantasies? Well, actually, my fantasies are not so paranoid, and they usually involve being abducted by space alien chicks with lots of piercings who are into liquid latex and want me to tattoo them:) Again, off topic, but I felt some clarification was necessary.
And remember kids; If your vote didn't count, they wouldn't bother rigging elections.
While I'm at it: Remember kids, some trolls really do work for the government; because, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog.
OK, I'm not up on this issue, but I don't see how you can call ethanol "envirofriendly". Yes, burning ethanol produces less pollution than methanol, to say nothing of diesel fuel. But you have to figure in the environmental cost of producing the ethanol. Don't you have to grow sugar beets or something similar, then ferment and refine the result? These are all energy-intensive and unenvironmental processes!
I won't claim to be an expert in how ethanol or methanol is produced. But consider this:
If ethanol can be produced from organically grown (no pesticides) crops and refined using a somewhat or mostly environmentally process...how is that worse than methanol, which is not produced using any of these more enivronmentally friendly methods?
The bonus of "growing" ethanol is that this is yet another way for money to stay in the local economy. More stuff for beleagured farmers to do. Not that I'm all about "welfare" for farmers, but if we can have them doing more work, while being efficient and green AND not sending money to some foreign power who views the US with distain or outright hated, then...yeah, lets go for it.
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
outsider007
·
· Score: 1
Remember kids, some trolls really do work for the government
Yes that's it, I'm a government agent and you've blown my cover. Congratulations on being a paranoid lunatic.
-- If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
fat is not hard on cars, but...
by
Vaughn+Anderson
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· Score: 1
If this goes national think how much fatter people will have to get to keep up with the fuel requirements of the entire nation? Billions of gallons of used, vile and totally repugnant left over french fry goo has to come from some where...
also, "hey, we must be close to a restaurant, I smell food!" will become, "I can't tell if we are close to a restaruant, cause it everything smells like food!"
The Government thirst for revenue can be overriding. When I, lived in West Virginia
I was so poor that I ran my old truck off the condensate from a local gas well (Illegal AND Dangerious)
-- Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
Will Rogers
Why is anyone surprised that it is possible to run engines on other substances than those sold especially for the purpose?
The Diesel engine (or to give it its proper name, the compression-ignition internal combustion engine) was named after its inventor, Rudolph Diesel, who conceived a modified form of internal combustion engine that could run on heavier fuel than previous models. Initially this would have meant plant oils -- I believe the first Diesel engine was actually run on peanut oil.
It works by using a piston to compress the air in a cylinder (incidentally heating it; the Ideal gas Equation says PV=nRT); then squirting in a quantity of fuel. The trick being simply that the fuel must undergo spontaneous combustion at the temperature of the air in the cylinder. The resulting explosion forces the piston back out.
Once a suitable substance to run these compression-ignition engines was found in the form of a petroleum fraction, it naturally became known as Diesel oil.
But *any* substance which explodes when mixed with air at the temperature achieved inside a Diesel engine at TDC (I haven't got one here to measure) will fire such an engine. The closer its other physical properties to the designed fuel, then the less modification will be required to the fuel pump system. In fact, older Ford and Peugeot engines run fine on cooking oil. Strain it first if it's been used.
By the way: Don't pay the duty. Vegetable oil is not producing extracyclical CO2 (the kind that contributes to climate change) - every carbon atom in the plant came from CO2 in the atmosphere in the first place. But, we are told, the duty was levied to reduce the amount of carbon entering the cycle. Let yourself get taken to Crown court, and then you only have to convince two people out of twelve to acquit you on the basis that the law is unjust.....
-- Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
MossyKnoll
·
· Score: 1
Gee. Ya got me all figured out pal.
I'm a paranoid lunatic because I made noise over what appears to be collusion and conspiracy in the energy industry.
How silly of me. That would never happen in America!
Yeah, your probably right. Enron was just a fluke.
All the other corporate giants with their fingers in the pork barrel are really fine upstanding U.S. corporate citizens who believe in protecting the environment, avoiding armed conflict over foreign oil fields, and wouldn't mind at all if they lost centralized control over energy production and sales if hemp, corn, soybean oil, or french fries (uh... I meant Freedom Fries) became a viable source of energy for millions of consumers.
The HempCar probably isn't real (www.hempcar.org). They prolly faked it on a soundstage just like the lunar landings!
Keep up the great work 007. Blind allegiance to the party line probably will land you on a rewarding career path. The last thing any Iron Triangle employer wants in an employee who questions motives.
Keep your head down and your mouth shut and you'll go far.
I figure one of two things:
1. Either you actually believe that Corporate America and the government does not spend money on manipulating public opinion,
2. or you'd have me and everyone else believe that.
You're either unbelievably naive, have a vested interest in spreading FUD about alternative energy and anyone who proffers such notions, or, like I already said and believe, you are just another slashdot troll.
And if you really don't believe there are government funded trolls, then I have some land in Florida I'd like to sell to you.
Cheers!
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
outsider007
·
· Score: 1
ok so we've got 3 scenarios. either I'm right and you're a paranoid whackjob, or I'm wrong and there's a vast conspiracy that you can't do anything about anyway, or I'm a troll and you fell for it hook line and sinker.
any way you look at it, you lose.
-- If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
MossyKnoll
·
· Score: 1
All I've lost is about an hour.
You've helped "do something about it" already, by extending this little thread, you've allowed me to publish my "paranoid" ideas quite lucidly. Specifically, the threat which biofuel poses to the petroleum industry; be it "greasel", "hempoil", or whatever else works.
The entire time you've only responded with namecalling: "stoner", lunatic", "whackjob".
Allow me to encapsulate this entire discussion:
Me: "Biofuel is an economic and ecologically sound alternative to energy sources derived from petroleum. Therefore big oil is scared of it."
You: "Your a stoner, lunatic, paranoid whackjob."
Me: "You're obviously either a naive or paid troll."
You: "Your a stoner, lunatic, whackjob with paranoid fantasies."
13,000 miles on hemp oil in an un-modified Mercedes diesel is no fantasy (www.HempCar.org). The fact that the our so called "liberal media" hasn't published anything about it is no fantasy either.
C'mon. Give us some hard facts to deal with about the pragmatic difficulties of biofuel alternatives.
Make me go back to the drawing board and do more research and reading. Gimme some book titles or journal articles. Help enlighten the debate.
What you (a troll) or I (a paranoid bookworm) are is irrelevant to the topic.
De-centralized growth and development of biofuel alternatives would solve a whole host of global problems which are assuredly going to worsen over the next several decades.
Here's where I bow out of this thread.
Congratulations. You get the last word in.
Make it a great closing argument. Try to stay on topic.
yours truly,
the paranoid freak
PS: We should do this again sometime.;)
Re:Why is Hemp illegal??? A: Because it's FUEL.
by
outsider007
·
· Score: 1
the fact that you continue to respond to this thread suggests a pattern of obsessive-compulsive behavior for which you should seek medication - and I'm not talking about the stuff growing in your closet.
and remember, you're not allowed to reply. doesn't that make your brain itch??
-- If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
I hate environmentalists who don't do their homework. They play into the hands of anti-environmentalists who think that making fun of the evironmental movement answers all arguments.
Agriculture has a huge environmental impact. There's toxic runoff (even with "organic" methods), erosion, replacement of natural growth with an artificial monoculture. Worst of all, you have to burn a lot of fuel (and create a lot of greenhouse gases) to grow a crop. Nobody who cares about the environment should advocate more agriculture than is necessary to feed people or produce other necessary products.
Not that non-fossil diesels are necessarily a bad idea. These guys burn vegetable oil in their diesel boats so they won't spread particulate all over the marine sanctuary they cruise over. But that's a limited, specific goal. As a general replacement for fossil fuels, "crop" fuels are just plain stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
... but that was my retirement grease!
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
"If you power your puck-up by cooking grease, you might be a Redneck."
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
you could turn turkey guts and plastics into oil and oil products!
Does this look legit? I am always wary of this kind of stuff, but there's no obvious reasons to doubt it - it isn't making fantastic claims...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Hmmm... which is more deadly now. The car or the fuel...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Haven't they been doing this in Wales or Ireland or something a while ago? I remember a BBC radio news item about police stopping and checking people's cars (it's illegal, you see).
...my God you're greasy......
-Homer Jay Simpson
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
The original car engines could run on just about anything - until the big diesel and gasoline companies bought the patent for the engine, and converted it to run on only what it does today.
Seems to me like this is just a step back towards the original engines which could run on just about anything.
Apparently, most modern diesel engines can burn this stuff without alteration...
Anyone know of a good V6 Diesel out there that would fit in an S10 Blazer? I'd love to plant an acre or two of weed(s) to grind up and brew BioD with...
People have been making "Biodesiel" for years now. This is nothing new. A little lye and some vegetable oil is all it takes.
What is interesting is that it is still cheaper to buy real desiel than vegetable oil. Where biodesiel has an advantage is in recycling used vegetable oil that is no longer food quality but is with a little work good enough to burn in your car/airplane. Unfortunatly there is not enough of this to make a real dent in the American desiel usage.
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
Hey first post about the dupe...
.... yeah... never mind it's been up for freakin ever, I read about it here ages ago.... I've got a post somewhere saying something like the following:
Greasecar.com
It's impractical because grease is already recycled, you have to A) own a deep fat fryer, or B) know someone who does. (and they'll pay you to take it away)
I wonder how much diesel this could save the world.. grease is everywhere, more naturally than oil it seems.
/. :D
Would you have to buy a new kind of motor or filter or something? How much could this mess up your engine?
Site says UNDER HEAVY CONSTRUCTION. I bet it goes down after being on
I sell out to The Man every day.
Cool stuff for sure tho!
(directed at a Krusty Burger employee)
The grease on his forhead alone is worth a bounty!
This tech has been posted on /. before.. Drive a Greasecar - DIY Biodiesel
Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
If a tone of people start doing this they are going to find the veggie oil costs a HELL of a lot more than diesel. (Anyone ever price out biodiesel?)
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Doc: I need fuel. Go ahead, quick, get in the car.
Marty: No no no, Doc, I just got here, okay, Jennifer's here, we're gonna take the new truck for a spin.
Doc: Well, bring her along. This concerns her too.
Marty: Wait a minute, Doc. What are you talking about? What happens to us in the future? What, do we become assholes or something?
Doc: No no no no no, Marty, both you and Jennifer turn out fine. It's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids.
Marty: Hey, Doc, we better back up, we don't have enough roads to get up to 88.
Doc: Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
And in other news today, McDonalds will be shipping its meat in special "pressmobiles" which will use the shipped product as its fuel - scientists predict heart disease in the U.S. will fall by 25% as a side effect of this new transportation method.
University of Victoria, in BC Canada, already had a Veggie Van fully operational. I think the diesel engine itself is unmodified, but they had a special filtering process so that they could use leftover McDonald's vegetable oil ...
Sorry my car is on a diet. Will they have a lite version?
.
Switching to grease? Finally, dogs will have a reason to chase your car.
Asda, the UK subsidiary of Walmart, is running it's fleet of lorries on biodiesel produced from waste oil from frying donuts. They produce between 60 to 90 million litres of waste frying oil every year, which is now providing them with cheap fuel.
See this web page for more information.
HH
I just noticed this this weekend, but some gas stations (at least on in the backwoods of Missouri) are starting to carry Soy Diesel as well. These fuels are alot nicer to the enviroment, and are completely renewable. The only question is when is somone going to step up and make the process of making BioDiesel more reasonable from a cost basis? Really, a hydrogen car would be cool and all, but I really dont see that happening any time in the near future, so why couldnt the government put some of that money into making friendlier options to the fuels that we currently use?
:)
And plus, I want my beasty diesel to smell like french fries!
They have this car and can do about anything with it... install a big-ass engine, lower it, install earth-shattering stereo equipment... and all they come up with is this stupid greasel stuff?
Man... I bet the girls really got the hots for greasel drivers...
We had one of those grease traps out back. A company charged them X amount to take away the grease every week. The funny thing was they started complaining that someone was stealing the grease. This got me to thinking, Why are we paying for them to take this away if it is a valuable product? I can't Imagine a garbageman complaining that someone has been stealing your trash and they don't get to pick up as much anymore.
(In Beavis or Butthead's voice)
"Hmm, ha, ha, he said, injector coking."
"Hmm, yeah, coking is cool."
But we in the eastern US haven't had a Jack in the Box here in almost 2 decades! All because of a little bad meat or something. Bah.
I bet in quantity, Crisco is quite a bit more expensive in diesel.
Plus, the engine needs regular diesel anyway.
Why not engineer a fuel just as "useful," like pig testicles?
Still no cure for cancer.
I remember seeing a story on Discovery back in '92 or so about a guy in Maine running his VW Rabbit off of fry grease. Aren't they calling it biodiesel these days? A friend was looking into starting a company that collects grease from restaurants and purifies it to create biodiesel, but found that the grease collection biz is pretty cutthroat. It's not as easy to get your hands on spent fry grease as you might think!
-brian
And I mean that literally. Can you imagine being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic behind some guy who just topped off his tank at Jack-in-the-Box. Or, how about the poor souls who live next to some of the highways that are forever like parking lots. I think I'd rather have the gas exhaust/.
Read the Faqs, one of the first questions says..
Did Greasel discover that diesel engines will run on cooking oil?
No. The first diesel engines (invented by Rudolf Diesel in the late 1800's) were actually designed to run on plant oils. Immediately after Rudolf's untimely demise, his colleagues (who were just then tapping the resources of petro-based fuel sources) swept his veggie ideas under the rug and actually converted his design to run on petro-based 'diesel' fuel (which they were nice enough to name after him).
Blarg
PS the puns on the greasel site are pretty lame...
This has been done before, but it's cool that other are trying it too.
There are some great links to Biodiesel sites too. It's nice to see some people trying to take some baby steps, towards environmentally friendly vehicles, instead of just trying to go straight to the top, as is the case with hydrogen powered vehicles, which are great, but too expensive
<> I've posted comments about this subject before...so I'll just repeat myself..AGAIN:
;^)
:)
;P)
;)
;^)
<long rant>
1) This has been talked about before. This is VERY old news. Remember the article about the motorcycle that ran on 'bio-diesel' a while ago?
(E-cycle or something or other...they must've had a LOT of marketing weasels
2) 'Greasel'? Hmm...they must have a marketing weasel. Commonly known as 'bio-diesel'. There are a variety of oils that can be used as bio-diesel, some of which ARE liquid at 'normal' temperatures.
3) There was a student on/from some pacific island, who figured out that you could run diesel cars on coconut oil. The difference was that with the local ambient temperatures he didn't have to worry about heating and keeping the coconut oil fluid. (and he was never heard from again...)
4) There was a guy in Europe about 10 years ago who also had cars running on bio-diesel..I can't remember what kind of vegetable oil he used, I think he extracted it from some weed/plant. There was talk of growing the weed/plant (koolzaad?) commercially...but he was never heard of again.
Happens to all these geezers who come up with the idea of running cars on bio-diesel - funny that...
(No conspiracy here, sorry, probably just lack of funding, lack of commercial interest.)
5) I glanced over the article, but eh...wouldn't you need to filter the 'greasel'? BTW most grease from deep-fries can be recycled. There are companies here that do it. (here not being US
6) The one thing that I did NOT see mentioned on that website (after a quick glance at the FAQ):
CARS THAT RUN ON biodiesel/greasel STINK!
Well, so I heard anyway...I've read articles that describe the smell from the emmissions somewhat similar to the smell of fried donuts.
Cleaner emmissions? yes please, but I'd say you'd
get pretty fed up with the smell after a while.
(Imagine being stuck in a traffic jam behind a car that runs on bio-diesel
Having said all that, bio-diesel is probably the most suitable replacement for petrol in my opinion, as it requires little or no change to the existing petrol-delivery infrastructure all around the world. Nobody will get fired, no expensive changes to petrol-stations...perfect. Although I'm pretty sure you could cook up some homebrew bio-diesel in your backyard and put the petrol-companies out of business
</rant>
Wheh...time to go and put my fingers in some cold water
A rip off of this which almost makes this a repost of old news. Way to go
Not literally, like refuelling=going to the john, but for processed human wastes. bio methane is commonly used for fuel in rural areas. maybe the digesters would be too large and heavy to be mobile.
I remember seeing something like this around 7 years ago on that old TV show "Beyond 2000". Well, being on that show...I guess it was accurate.
I don't think he used a diesel engine though...can't recall.
The issue about engine temperature is disheartening, perhaps an inexpensive additive can be developed to thin the vegetable oil to an appropriate viscosity instead of relying on temperature?
Why this car could be systematic.. hydromatic... ultramatic...
"Eat And Get Gas"
Doing that might have saved their ass's.
Sometimes in my commute I see a VW Beetle that has a sign up touting what percent desiel that it is running.
Apparently the less traditional desiel, the cheaper - but the performance goes way down. "Car Talk" on NPR had a caller asking all about it during one show in the past few months.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I always cough when I smell car exhaust fumes. I guess now I'll just get hungry.
I notice that they use a triple bypass valve, so now when you've had your triple bypass operation for your heart, because of all the burgers you've been chowing down, you can get a triple bypass for the car, so it matches...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
This is all very similar to the biodiesel posts a while back. One interesting point, is that this fuel is entirely possible to acquire this fuel independently but, as claimed on Biodiesel.org, running your car on pure vegetable oil is illegal due to regulation from the EPA.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
about using grease in cars in the uk Fry and Drive
This is not Biodiesel. This engine mod runs on straight vegetable oil without any processing other than filtering. Grease is usually too viscous to be used directly but this system preheats it to make it flow better.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I've heard these things smell like french fries from behind. Imagine waiting in traffic... I'd be so hungry.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
Sorry to tell you this but your 21 days late!
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Did you know every time you buy diesel fuel for your car you are supporting terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda with oil money? A new scientific developement allows you to use grease instead of diesel to power your car. You may have already seen this at low-grade food establishments such as Jack-in-the-Box. But why settle for low-grade grease? Fuel your car direct from the grease master: McDonalds!
McDonalds: Smiles starting at just $.50 per gallon.
If you think SUV's are obnoxious, now were gonna have obese SUV's.
Table-ized A.I.
This was already covered.
Reinard
Yum!
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
I mean, most of these have animal adulterants in them, so what's a low-impact vegan geek supposed to do?
...
I suppose you could use olive oil, but she's kind of thin
> --- All Of The Above --- >
I just got through seeing this on TechTV and was going to submit the story, but I guess I am too slow. :)
Anyway, here's a TechTV link
Yup right here, and here, here.
Is there a statute of limitations on dupage?
-Sean
Or how about Recession Fries
Simpsons quotes are never funny out of context. Thank God someone modded this down.
There is a company that sells a full conversion kit for diesel vehicles.
Check out www.greasecar.com
This is just one of the many ways you can run a diesel engine on vegetable oil. Personally, I would rather not use this method, but the one that involves you making biodiesel. (See www.biodiesel.org).
9 70 722702/qid=1051056697/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-062443 9-8328151?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
You can also get a good book explaining the process. I recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
It pretty much covers your options.
futang futang!
I read through the Discover article when the print magazine came out a few weeks ago, and the science definately seems in order. The fact that they have a pilot plant ready to start operation is also a big plus in the 'legit' column.
And this should have a much bigger environmental impact than standard 'biodiesel' or 'vegetable oil vehicle' projects. If all goes well, we might even be able to stop sucking oil out of the ground in a few decades.
People have been making "Biodesiel" for years now. This is nothing new. A little lye and some vegetable oil is all it takes.
That's not even necessary.
I worked at a McDonalds in high school (about 1991), and one of the maintenance guys had an old (even then!) mid-1970s VW Rabbi (someone chiselled off the T for the fun of it) which was running on used shortening.
Actually, the guy was bright and knew a lot about cars, though he had no formal education. He built a system into an old gas can which rested on a "hot plate" heated by engine coolant. McDonalds filters their oil every day, and on those days on the schedule when it was being replaced, he'd just run it through the McDonalds filtration pump and into the gas cans.
The shortening would thicken, but when he was driving, he'd wait until the engine was warm and the oil was liquid, then throw the valve over to run it off the shortening. The fuel line was a copper tube taped against the lengths of copper plumbing pipe carring the hot coolant to the "hot plate" in the cargo area of the hatchback. Running out of fuel was no big deal - when the engine started to sputter, he'd flip the valve back to diesel off his regular tank, then at the next stop, he'd swap the gas can sitting on the hot plate. The pickup tube was hacked into the cap of a gas can, so the car sucked the oil right out of the gas can.
Riding in that car with him from Ottawa to Toronto (for a Ramones concert) in the dead of winter, I found only two small problems. One, the interior of the car was damned hot because of the hot plate. Two... the car - and I mean *the whole car*, from interior to exhaust - smelled like Chicken McNuggets. Sometimes, Filet-O-Fish.
On the other hand, the fuel was free, it was filtered with McDonalds specially-designed oil-filtation equipment and never seemed to cause him a problem with fuel filters, and my 340-4bbl Duster was getting about 8 miles per gallon... so I envied the utility but declined his offer to trade for my Duster.
What is interesting is that it is still cheaper to buy real desiel than vegetable oil. Where biodesiel has an advantage is in recycling used vegetable oil that is no longer food quality but is with a little work good enough to burn in your car/airplane. Unfortunatly there is not enough of this to make a real dent in the American desiel usage.This is true. Actually, the cost advantage isn't so great, when you figure that your time is worth something. Rather than scouting out restaurant dumpsters (which are pretty unpleasant places), you could be doing something more fun like getting fellatio or posting to Slashdot.
In his case, though, it was win-win since he was already gonna smell like McNuggets at the end of the day.
On the other hand, virgin vegetable oil could be a highly viable fuel. But the problem is that the very same people who jump up and down and scream about how nasty petroleum is, also jump up and down and scream about how nasty genetically modified corn and soy (which is the only way to make this economically viable) is. The best line I've ever heard came from a Greenpeace activist driving a sick little moped (blue clouds of poorly-tuned two-stroke, measurably more noxious than the exhaust from any well-tuned land-yacht SUV that he also complained about) screaming about how we can't feed cars while people are starving in Somalia. (If Somalis don't want to starve, they should have less children. Sorry, but it's not my problem.)
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I've got a BMW M3 that I'm running on a concoction made from cow manure, turkey dung and yak butter. It actually smells better than you'd think, it's just that I can't seem to get any dates since I've converted to my new "magic" fuel.
Hey, last summer around this time you guys posted an article that was almost like this except it was for the other grease car conversion kit company GreaseCar. Anyway I started doing some research on the subject and became sold! Thanks somewhat in part to /. I've got a mint condition 1975 Mercedes Benz (bought on eBay) running on grease for almost a year now! I highly recommend doing this. The conversion was easy and the power of grease is amazing!
a bucket of kfc will cost 30 bucks!
Nooooooo!
What the hell, I'd still pay it.
--Joey
You complain of these cars smelling of donuts... You mean to tell me you prefer the smell of a pickup running on standard diesel?
[Trojan.]
Over the weekend, I had a buddy (who is an out of work airline mechanic) tell me that you could run home heating oil in a diesel car unmodified. He also made the claim that it would not damage the diesel engine either.
It's basically kerosene as he explained it and that they bust truckers using it instead of diesel fuel by checking the coloring of the fuel. This is done because of the taxes of gasonline.
He said it would be simple to get a pump and load your car from home. It would be safer as diesel is harder to light than gasoline. Buying it during the summer would be the time to get the biggest savings compared to gasoline.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question105.htm says that kerosene is in the C12 to C15 range, followed by diesel fuel and heavier fuel oils (like heating oil for houses).
I thought he was full of it, but now I'm not so sure. Ok well, I'm sure he was full of it, just not about this anymore.
Pacific Biodiesel set up a reprocessing plant next to the Maui County dump a couple of years back. Now the dump gets the equivalent of a few pounds of Nutragena (tm) as processing waste each week, while the rest of the fryer oil powers County trucks, many of the tour boats, and a few intrepid Volkswagen owners.
Luke, help me take this mask off
What would expect from a country that signed onto the Kyoto agreement?
McDonalds: Smiles starting at just $.50 per gallon.
Not gonna happen. They don't produce enough waste oil per restaurant to make it worthwhile.
You might start to see a waste hauler become enterprising, invest in some filtration equipment and start selling it, but I think the road tax issues might become too complicated to make it worthwhile for him. In Ontario, Canada, gas is going for about $0.70/L right now; about $0.40/L of that is taxes to pay for silly things like the Canadian Recording Artists Association and the new monument to King Jean Poutine in Shawinigan. (Once upon a time, gas taxes were high but used exclusively to build and maintain roads. It was truly a user-pay system, and Ontario had the best highway system in the world. Then we had a socialist (NDP) government who ran up the debts and decided that it was more important to support dubious lowest-common-denominator causes rather than the infrastructure which made our economy boom.)
Besides, there really aren't all that many diesel cars out there, certainly not up north here. Not only do car buyers usually avoid diesel cars because of noise, vibration and (usually) slow performance, but up here they're a bitch to start in the winter - and that's before you start to add less-than-optimal fuels into the system.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
People seem to be complaining that vegetable oil costs more than regular diesel fuel. That's probably because there isn't enough supply of, for example, soybeans to process into soybean oil.
Why the "shortage" (at least as it pertains to use as a fuel)? Because soybean prices are terrible, so farmers lean toward producing something they can make more money at (corn, livestock, etc.)
Provided this starts to take off, there could be a higher demand for soy-based oils for fuel sources, thus encouraging more farmers to produce more soybeans, and with more supply to match the demand, pricing would stabilize, if not come down (depending on the amount of increased soybean production).
Note: all of the above could also be applied to corn and the production of Methanol as a fuel additive insted of synthetic chemical additives.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
My dad runs his diesel 4x4 on canola oil ( i think ), when ever he starts it in the morning it smells like a fish and chip shop. Always manages to make me hungry
Maybe the invasion of Iraq for the oil was unnecessary.
Next we can invalid a country for the veg oil.
Seriously.
"Some of the earlier problems with odour from acetic acid in the emissions were also solved. The fuel used is 95% bio-based ethanol from forestry by-products and, for some periods, wine-ethanol."
I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, but at some point Sweden was importing Spanish wine to fuel some of their buses. I dunno about the acetic acid smell though--yuck.
BioDiesel is a great idea, but there is a very good reason why it hasn't taken off. BioDisiel promoters are right about it being great for the environment, but no one is willing to develop it for production (even the very interested VW).
Reason, if BioDiesel were to challenge regular gasoline/petrol, it would require a lot of vegetables. While it is true that the U.S. is actually over-producing crops, and thus having to pay farmers not to grow crops. There still isn't enough plants to produce BioDiesel for everyone, even if all of those fields were fully cultivated.
Facts Canada produces 50 mil. tons of relevant crops, and it would only need 10 mil. tons to power a country of BioDiesel cars. However the rest of the world does not have the same grain surplus as Canada, most other countries are at a deficit, and purchase Canada's surplus. The US. production although higher, has smaller surplus levels, and greater demand for combustible products.
Sig Nazi- "No Sig for you, come back 1 year."
Greasels were in Deus Ex! Tasty little green lizardy buggers they were!
It's well known that you can run a diesel engine on cooking oil. Just as long as its filtered and you switch back to dino diesel for a cool down before shutting it off. Here's a great site for more info on biodiesel. Veggie Van. I recomend the book that they sell. From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank.
I have seen this for years...it is called biodesil.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
fuck up your car
One of the advantages to organic fuels I haven't seen mentioned here is that it's way less damaging to spill them than mineral oil. The company I work for runs heavy machinery and we sometimes work near the ocean. In some cases we will replace the mineral based hydraulic oil in our equipment with canola because if we blow a line and spew gallons of canola into the water it's not as big a deal as it will break down naturaly.
On the other hand a mineral oil spill is a serious disaster and requires getting out the spill kit and a boat and trying to contain it with floating booms which never completely works and wastes hours of time.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
OK Mr Smarty pants did you know I've been running my home entertainment system using Grease?
But looking at how plants are grown, you find out that fertilizers and all those other chemicals needed for modern agriculture are PETRO-chemicals, meaning you still need oil to make them. And wherever I read this (wish I could remember) they had done a study and found that natural fuel economies actually used MORE oil than oil economies. Kind of like how electric cars still need to get their energy from somewhere, you are just pushing the pollutants farther upstream in the process.
Needless to say I found it depressing.
nigger
It will be a long time before we see the distributorships carrying "biodiesel" as opposed to good'ol number 2 diesel. The downward pressure that the oil companies could apply to the market would make petroleum diesel cheaper to purchase than biodiesel.
Vegetable oil is not the only option for "alternative" fuels. Offal from poultry can be used to generate gasoline. Does this spell the end of petroleum dependence? Will this increase the popularity of Chick-fil-a [copyright]? Who knows! I at least enjoy having other options.
As a side note, I am prototyping a business model for commercially producing bio-diesel. I'll let you know how it goes!
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Better yet... sometime ago Brazilian Govt invested in an alternative fuel: alcohol! Worked fine, besides some minor nuisances (car took longer to heat up), besides that, it was fine! There used to be more alcohol cars being sold some years ago, but then Govt stopped investing in it (OPEC?). Recently some car manufacturers began making motors that run on both gas and alcohol, any % mixture of them. Since Alcohol costs half the price of gas at stations down here in Brazil, and most gas stations still sells alcohol, this will surely be a Good Thing (TM).
This is not biodiesel. Biodiesel will run in any diesel engine w/o modifications. Most of the diesel sold in Europe is or contains biodiesel. Biodiesel is made by taking oil (such as used veggie oil) and mixing it with sodium methydroxide (Lye and Menthanol). The glycerine seperates out and what is left (minus more filtering, called "washing") is biodiesel.
This is often refered to as "SVO" - Straight Vegetable Oil. The Gresel system requires two tanks for starting and stopping on regular diesel. I've seen systems that do not require any diesel. They (simply) involve:
1. Replacing the injectors with ones that have a larger bore.
2. Changing the thermostat to one that stays on to a higher temperatature
3. Replacing the glow plugs with heavier duty ones
4. Installing an electric fuel line heater
5. Installing a heat exchanger
When the engine is cold the electric heater warms the fuel, allowing it to flow through the injectors properly. Once the engine heats up the thermostat shuts off which turns off the electric fuel line heater and the glow plugs. By then the heat exchanger uses the heat from the engine coolant to keep the fuel visocity low. I believe the main difference between this system and what gresel offers is the electric fuel line heater. Once you do the changeover you can still run off of diesel, but you're going to be dumping more fuel in the engine (larger injectors) so your horsepower will go up and your milage down.
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
last winter he forgot to switch to regular fuel before he shut it off and it froze solid, he had to light a fire under the engine to get it warm enough to work again.
Won't you be my my neighbor?
The best website for info on this and other alternative fuels is Journey to Forever
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
What does an individual Somialian do if he/she doesn't want to starve? Start killing kids?
Work hard. Get a visa. Come here.
It's like the whole philosophy there is "I can't feed my 5 children, so I'll have another!"
It's not my fault they live in an unarable shithole, it's not my fault they haven't learned any farming or contraceptive techniques from the developed world, and it's not my fault they haven't overthrown their corrupt rulers yet. Hell, it's not even my fault if their religion bans the use of contraceptives.
The smart ones come here. The rest of them can starve with only their own ineptitude to blame. The children? Well, no one ever said that Darwin was pretty.
Sorry, but I've got enough troubles here in the developed "paradise".
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
wop
Specifically,
"You may have already seen this at low-grade food establishments such as Jack-in-the-Box. But why settle for low-grade grease?"
Hey, low-grade? Sure it's not fine dining but when you're short on cash and you're hungry a Jumbo Jack with cheese hits the spot. They have an interesting menu at Jack in the Box. Although, I don't go there because of the prices. It's cheaper to go elsewhere.
Here in the Los Angeles area there are so many fast food joints that they're practically on every corner. Hard to resist them.
.nosig
Establishment science is a byproduct of dominant political and economic interests. (Some people don't like to hear that.) So, what kind of energy systems will emerge under a political and economic order that has been controlled, at least for the last 100 years, by corrupt oil money? Wide adoption of viable alternative energy systems would completely subvert the dominant paradigm (the U.S. imposed global economic and political order) and depose long established elites.
The only way that any paradigm breaking technologies will emerge is if we (average people) build them ourselves. This work must be carried out by the non experts among us, the laymen and the backyard tinkerers because the alleged "scientists" are too busy maintaining the status quo on the road to oblivion.
To wit:
I recently came up with an idea that might allow for the creation of a vehicle that burns no non renewable hydrocarbons (gasoline) and in fact runs on solar power and water.
"Whuuuh?" you ask. Forget about what "CAN'T" happen for a few minutes and keep reading!
!WARNING! I have done NO research on actually building this prototype. In fact, I have no experience at all with high voltage electrical systems, generators, explosive gasses or internal combustion engines. Actually attempting to execute the following ideas may be very dangerous.
And if I had the money, I'd be out right now trying to do this. ;)
Let's get down to it:
Hybrid gasoline-electric cars use both conventional gas burning and electrical engines. If you want to know more about how hybrid cars work, see howstuffworks.com for an excellent summary. Hopefully, someone out there has a pioneering spirit, a full workshop and access to, and ability to modify, a Toyota Prius or Honda Insight.
In my opinion, the primary problem with hybrid gas-electric cars is that THEY STILL BURN GASOLINE. My idea is primarily concerned with eliminating the need to use any gasoline at all (or any other filthy, proprietary fuel) in a vehicle that is, for all intents and purposes, extremely well engineered and efficient.
The question then becomes: What type of fuel would the vehicle's internal combustion engine burn?
Behold, JL Naudin's Bingo Fuel Reactor.
Passing current through carbon electrodes immersed in ORDINARY TAP WATER produces gas that can power conventional internal combustion engines. See Naudin's incredible demonstration in which he powers a 5 kilowatt Honda generator directly with the gas from his BingoFuel Reactor. Ok, class, pay attention: Look at the specification for the type of fuel required to run that Honda generator. It's supposed to run on automotive unleaded gasoline (minimum 86 pump octane). Yep, that's the same automotive unleaded gasoline that you put in your car, or in those Honda and Toyota hybrids.
Obviously, to get that gas out of the water, current must be passed through the carbon electrical array.
To all of you people out there shaking your heads, mumbling, "This is 11th grade chemistry class electrolysis, this takes too much power," stick with me.
Look at what Naudin says about the BingoFuel system vs. electrolysis:
It is interesting to notice that in this test of a 1 cell BingoFuel Reactor, the current used is 81.6 Amperes (see Test#1). With a same value of current used in a 1 cell electrolyser the volume of the of H2 is 36 liters per hour (at 20C). There is 46% of H2 in the synthetic gas genera
Previous topic (Vegetable Oil): http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/24/18 15213&mode=thread
I think I'm starting to get the hang of expecting reposts...
Some links to using Alcohol as a fuel:7 86/enal cohol.htma n/336.htmc ial/p_expor tadores_indianos/ethanol.htmk .org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /17823/story.htm
http://www.brasil.terravista.pt/jenipabu/3
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/tectr
http://www.indiaconsulate.org.br/comer
http://www.planetar
People in war ravaged countries aren't starving because they continue to have children in spite of their present conditions, they're starving because the children ALREADY EXISTED before the latest war/famine started. It is the biggest bunch of BS when people say that the problem comes from having too many kids.
If _you_ have a time machine and see that your job is going to be destroyed in a civil war in 7 years you can choose not to have a child, but people without the time machine can't retroactivly not have kids once the unforseen political/economic disaster happens.
To summarize: you are being an asshole, and don't understand what you're talking about.
every _exit() is the same, but every clone() is different.
Remember, moderators, you only have so many moderator points before you run out. So, if you mod this down, then I will have won!
People in war ravaged countries aren't starving because they continue to have children in spite of their present conditions, they're starving because the children ALREADY EXISTED before the latest war/famine started. It is the biggest bunch of BS when people say that the problem comes from having too many kids.
Sure. Even without wars, Somalia is overpopulated. The famine exists because the land isn't arable with their prehistoric techniques and arguable not even with the modern techniques like field rotation which they have judiciously decided to ignore despite it being common knowledge in the civilized world.
Ergo, you have famine. The famine exists because the population is too great for the land to support it. This problem didn't appear overnight.
If _you_ have a time machine and see that your job is going to be destroyed in a civil war in 7 years you can choose not to have a child, but people without the time machine can't retroactivly not have kids once the unforseen political/economic disaster happens.Okay. So, Somalia has been starving for at least 15 years that I can remember. How about the three year olds?
No one ever said that Darwin was pretty.
To summarize: you are being an asshole, and don't understand what you're talking about.Must be nice to be 16 years old. The World Is A Special And Wonderful Place. My Parents Are Wrong For Telling Me The I Need To Do My Calculus Homework, Because I'm Going To Be An NBA-Champion Basketball Player, Home-Boy Rap "Artist" And Anime Cartoonist And I'll Fix All The Broken People In Somalia By Hosting Infomercials About The Problem!
Next you're gonna tell me to feel sorry for the people of Bangladesh... yuppers, there's a good place for your future charity to rebuild. The whole country is no more than about 30 feet about sea level, built on the mouth of the mighty and oh-so-beautiful Ganges River. (What's the Ganges River? Two words: India's Sewer.) Why don't you see too many anthills on the beach? Well, the tide comes in every so often...
Nature is ugly. This is just nature taking its course. Grow up.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I prefer hemp to run my cars.
http://www.hempcar.org/
Is the impracticality of the whole thing. For example, starting a grease car is a royal pain in the ass. First you need to heat the fuel line so that that grease flows before you can even attempt to hit the ignition. I can only imagine what other kinds of problems this produces...
Not enough grease? That's BS. There's like, 1500 mcdonalds restaurants for each person on earth, and that's just mcdonalds
If you are satisfied with driving at and below 3000 rpm go ahead and drive your veggie oil car. There are problems with high viscosity fuels for high speed compression engines, foremost of which is the fact that the fuel will ignite late. So when the RPMs go high, fuel starts entering the cylinder but doesnt ignite until maximum compression by the piston. This creates a sort of explosion of a lot of fuel (not desirable) instead of a steady pushing burn (desirable). This causes less power to go to the wheels and more power to vibration or diesel knock. This problem becomes worse with higher RPMs. That is why ships use high viscosity diesel fuels because they have slow speed engines and aircraft and cars (and aircraft) use petro-diesel fuels, because these ignite faster.
(remember that show from the late 70's?) showed a guy in doing this ages ago, 1978 I think. It's amazing how this technology is pulled out every few years to see if anyone is ready to run their car on frier grease. Once again I file it under "Wow, that seems like a real pain in the ass."
Greasel-fueled engines sound great in theory, but those things are a lot harder to kill than they look.
If a tone of people start doing this they are going to find the veggie oil costs a HELL of a lot more than diesel. (Anyone ever price out biodiesel?)
Commercially-produced biodiesel is indeed more expensive, 2-3 times more than petro. Running a small co-operative is one thing. True commercial production is another -- you have equipment costs, plant safety/environmental standards that have to be met, etc. There are taxes to collect. And there are administrative costs associated with all of this.
So it's a far cry from a few 55 gal. drums in your backyard -- although you could do that and share with a few friends if you wanted to. It wouldn't make sense for most people, but for farmers, fishermen, etc., who use lots of diesel it might.
There are also used oil burners too. You can do a google search if interested.
The primary problem with all of these things is there isn't exactly enough fuel to go around. Sure there will be a niche market, but there isn't enough fuel in mass to really serve the populous.
I just can't wait to install my new Mr. Fusion though. It makes BioDiesel and Used Oil burners look like a match.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I want all of that grease to go to my Ultimate Cheeseburger!
Here is a friend who has installed the Greasel kit in his '82 diesel chevette in Seattle: http://tharsis.ubertechnique.com/vette/. He runs his 'vette on waste vegetable oil (WVO) from places such as chinese restaurants and donut shops. Donut oil is apparently the "elusive grail". (Since it requires the least filtering?) He has lots of (often funny) detail about his experiences. CNN even aired his story. One of the greatest challenges WVO powered vehicle owners face is finding a reliable supply of oil. There is a critical mass of users needed in order for it to become economical to collect and redistribute WVO. Until then, the users will have to spend time finding and bargaining for the oil and rely on their ability to charm restaurant owners into letting them have their waste oil.
I recall seeing a a news segment in the late 80s, where a guy modded his A1 VW (an early 80s Rabbit diesel) to run on french fry grease/oil. He said the exhaust smelled like a fast food place.
IIRC, he initially got the waste grease for free, but for whatever reason he started getting shooed away from the fast food places when he kept coming around to filler up. Perhaps the connection between fueling a stinky diesel and a key fast fast food ingredient wasn't particularly desirable to various burger joints...
Let me guess, same type of person who throws paint on someone's mink coat while wearing a leather belt and aligator skin boots?
This is an interesting news piece. It was even more interesting when I read about it this morning in Tuesday's New York Times Science Section in an article by Chris Dixon. Was this submission an original idea or just inspired by the NY Times article?
--Sam
So we get all the organic waste and turn it into useful organic stuff. This means oil is here to stay, and get cheaper, so the air is not getting any cleaner. I thought we didn't want to use oil forever!
Ahem... may I please direct your attention to http://www.hempcar.org. Ibentold that you can get more biofuel from corn than from hemp... HOWEVER, hemp grows much faster than corn. Therefore... Makes you wonder what the drug war is really about. Pervert the dominant paradigm.
he's 100% right
I understand exactly what you are saying but I believe the US could make the situation better in the starving countries. You obviously were very lucky to have been born in the country that you were born in. These people are of course ignorant of the outside word. Yes we should feel bad about these places, in the third world how about places like China. Repressive governments cause problems for people, the people of china work very hard, but countries like the US use them for cheap labor, their situation is not great. Let me guess it is their fault that the US corporations are able to make them choose between a crappy live or no life at all. If you consider how big of a tax cut the US government is giving, you'd realize that sum of money could help starving children by not only giving food but education. People must know how to farm and how to build their country before they do. I do not think we can solve every problem, it is inevitable there are those who have and those who do not, it is the nature of existance. But we should count are selves as lucky to have been born among those with and should try to aliviate(sp) the suffering of our fellow man. There is a difference between poor and dying, it is our responsibility to try to minimize the death. It is quite clear that those who are too idealistic fail to understand the simple reality of the world but we can change the world and should. While evolution holds humans are unlike most animals in that the factors involved in humans magnify the effects.
Biodiesel is vegetable oil which has been through the process of transestrification, which strips the glycerin out of the oil, leaving a diesel-fuel-like substance which can be run in an unmodified diesel engine. here's more information. This article is about Greasel (the fuel), a slang term for vegetable oil which is being used as a fuel directly by using slight vehicle modifications with a kit such as Greasel (the kit).
In fact, a large amount of biodiesel is currently being produced both commercially and independently from both virgin oil and waste oil. biodiesel.org will help you find a pump near you. Biodiesel is not oversubsidized to the extent your petroleum fuels are, but even at its larger price ($2.77/gallon at my local pump) is gaining wide popularity. WVO (waste vegetable oil) powered vehicles are still in the domain of dorks like me and the Greasel guys.
somebody bent my whookey.
After she told me about this, I was, of course, totally fascinated, as I'd never heard of such a thing before. I looked for instructions on Google and found some very interesting info. If an engine is going to be running biodiesel, some changes have to be made. Many say that a totally necessary change is replacing all rubber hoses and stuff with items made from another material. Biodiesel rots rubber over time. Also, one should tune their engine a little differently. Apparently all French diesel vehicles made past a certain year are biodiesel ready ... minus some minor tuning because all their diesel is already a certain percentage biodiesel ... as required by a law (please correct me if this is inaccurate). Apparently, many other European countries use a percentage of biodiesel in their petrodiesel as well.
I simply cannot find the exact page I originally learned this all from ... but you can still search away!
I found this nice page about modern biodiesel usage in Europe by typing "biodiesel france percentage" into Google.
LOTS AND LOTS of biodiesel stuff online. This stuff really has a future, it's not just a hippy thing.
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
Incredible! The NY Times must have seen this Slashdot posting and sent a writer back in time to steal the Greasy Scoop before last night's deadline!
/ 22 FUEL.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/science/earth
Brave submitter i22y ought to write the Times an angry letter demanding they acknowledge their sources! You can threaten to expose their evil time-traveling-./-reading plot if they don't!
These guys have been at it for quite some time. Also has appeared now and again in Home Power Magazine....
This is true we can't grow enough for everyone to burn biodiesel, but there is the capability for the farmers to grow enough to be able to deal with the US's 15% that we import from the middle east. Use the waste matterial and surplus crops to be able to break our dependency on their oil and give them the big middle finger for every time they played with the prices. It won't take long for them to see how much of their oil they can eat when we cause the price of oil to plummet and that of crops to climb since all our extra crops will be going to the gas station.
The UK draws a lot of its road taxation from fuel charges. The idea is that the more you drive and the bigger, more damaging vehicle you use the more it hurts.
Sucks to be an SUV owner, but who cares 8)
Why people are still talking about running a car on vegetable oil when we can turn vegetables into real (petroleum) oil, I don't know...
Although I'm quoting the parent, my comment is not directly related.
All of these new fuel technologies - and I include hydrogen fuel, fuel cells, biodiesel, alcohol-based fuels, etc in this comment - are great, and some of them require little modification of the car (diesel engines are quite tolerant of different fuels, while petrol is not so good). Lots of people often wonder why these are not being adopted much more quickly, and why some of the major manufacturers are not already producing models that use these environment-friendly technologies.
One of the biggest factors that is holding back wide scale adoption of these technologies is the infrastructure that is already in place and supplies your car with fuel - the service/petrol stations [insert whatever you call them in your country!]. The cost involved in changing these over to, for example, hydrogen pumps, is absolutely staggering and far outweighs the cost of converting the cars themselves over. This is particularly true in countries like the US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, etc. And, like we all know, money does all the talking so until a solution to this problem is found I can't see the situation changing much.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
This is interesting. A while back a Welsh supermarket noticed that their own-brand vegetable oil was selling in huge amounts, and it turned out that a number of locals were manufacturing biodiesel for their own private use. Biodiesel is manufactured by adding methanol to vegetable/animal oil/grease, which displaces glycerine from the oil and allows it to be used in an unmodified Diesel engine.
The authorities came down on this lot, not because there's anything illegal about Biodiesel, but because once it's engine fuel, it's taxed as engine fuel, and they hadn't been paying the appropriate taxes. With the taxes added on, it's still cheaper than standard Diesel, but not as dramatically so.
However, this Greasel site appears to be about modified engines which run on ordinary vegetable oil, not Biodiesel. So what are the tax implications there? Does the taxman have to rule that vegetable oil is taxable as soon as you put it in a fuel tank? Or based on your intention for the oil at the point of sale? What?
This happened in the UK about a year ago.
The Government tried to stop it (as they weren't getting ther tax off it). However someone pointed out that if the taxed is payed then its legal.
The result - a couple of firms have been set up to exploit this fact - cost to consumers - about 50% the price of diesel!
This story was run by Tommorows world [a uk science program - not running anymore i think ?] a couple of years ago at least. It featured just such a vehicle in Japan, just thought i'd mention that this technology has been around for quite a while. Alex
http://www.greasecar.com has been selling these conversion kits for a couple of years now, for less than $1,000 I think! They've driven across the US powered by grease! You can read the write-up about their trip at sierra club: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200111/homefront_ printable.asp#Grease
They seem to be alot more abundant than even McD's 'Freedom' Fries Oil!
Been there. Done that.
"Obscenity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - cloak42
All we do is mix some ethanol in with the vegetable oil, and presto, it doesn't solidify or gunk up and your diesel runs beautifully.
The only problem is that to passersby your car will smell like a chip shop has just driven past!
One (what this story started as) is a diesel conversion kit that you install on your car - you still have a diesel tank that you must fill (much less often), and you add another tank with fry grease. You start the car/truck on reg. diesel (or biodiesel if you're so inclined). Once the engine is warm, you flip a valve, and you will be them pumping SVO as they call it - Straight Vegetable Oil - to your injectors. The SVO must be warmed to flow properly through your fuel system and into the injectors. Running vegetable oil into a diesel engine was designed before running petro-oil into a diesel engine. Not a very new concept, although the people doing this have been on the fringe.
The other, Thermal Depolymerization, is a relatively new process (more precisely, an old process that has recently been improved to make it closer to cost-effective) that takes anything with hydrocarbons, and breaks the molecules down into components, including water, whatever non-hydrocarbon stuff was in the input, and an oil that can be re-distilled into whatever product you want (gasoline, diesel, etc).
There is a third process not directly mentioned here, but the process of making biodiesel. This is accomplished with a vat of fry oil, some lye, some methanol, a mixing apparatus, and time. You mix the stuff up, and get some glycerin, and regular diesel that you can put in your fuel tank for your car, truck, farm tractor, diesel generator, etc. The article I linked says the guy gets about 85% diesel and 15% glycerin from his fry oil, and if he gets the oil for free, the other ingredients work out to 54 cents a gallon, plus his time.
Of course, the majority of us with our gasoline engines, are still stuck with petroleum coming out of the ground, or maybe in the future from the Thermal Depolymerization process.
I have been hearing alot on biodiesel recently.
1) Click & Clack on NPR had a caller who found a place to buy pure biodiesel delivered to her house in 55 gallon drums. (She drove a way cool VW TDI.)
2) Some investors in NC are trying to create a biodiesel production company. Primarily aimed at local farmers. The articles I read on that, said that business tended to want to burn even a little biodiesel because it lubricates the engine more than regular diesel.
Given that two months ago I had not heard of the term "biodiesel" I'm seeing all of these references to be a sign of an uptick.
I assume you have spent years in a warzone, and hence are speaking from extensive experience. That can be the only possible excuse for the bloated and arrogant tone of this post.
But then, they say that arrogance is linked with ignorance.
The first thing that gets the chop in any war is infrastructure, which means things can't get from point to point. This includes food. So if you are not living on top of a large farm (and presumably have the means to defend it from marauders), it doesn't matter how arable your bloody country is. If you can't make it to the shops 5 miles away, they may as well be on the moon.
Your failure to credit the people of Somalia with basic reasoning power says far more about you than them. I mean, how dare they not follow a considered family planning routine in the middle of a large scale conflict? I mean, surely they can get contraceptives more easily than food? And with the ordered way the civil war is going, its obvious that rape gangs aren't a problem... I know, why don't they just abstain? I'm sure abstinence from human contact is exactly what the Somalis need. Probably reduce tensions in the area, too...
Stick to computers, twerp.
Biodiesle would be perfect for urban fleet vehicles, like in NYC, if the Sanitation Dept converted diesle garbage trucks to biodiesle. the DOS could start a profit generating program to pick up waste veg oil for a fee, filter it and then use it to run their vehicles. I want a bio diesle motorscooter. People might be interested in the B.I.O. Tour B.I.O. Tour 2003 is a national public awareness campaign, lead by DJs and activists, to highlight alternatives to America's fossil fuel addiction. The B.I.O. Tour 2003 team will traverse the United States this summer in a vegetable oil-powered bus, with a solar-powered sound system, teaching people how to use vegetable oil for fuel, hosting workshops, giving media interviews, distributing information and co- organizing dance parties, all in the support of clean, renewable, peaceful energy. Much more information on the project can be obtained at http://www.biotour.org.
"If You Cant Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
Then Don't Have A Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
And Don't Think Maybe (Yeah, Yeah)
If You Can't Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
You'll Be Always Tryin'
To Stop That Child From Cryin'
Hustlin', Stealin', Lyin'
Now Baby's Slowly Dyin'"
Michael Jackson, 1983
Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...
The first batch I made of neat ( unused ) vegitable (soybean) oil. I added the ethanol/lye to the oil which stayed at the bottom. I shook the jar and then the oil ( now converted to biodiesel ) floated to the top.
The second batch I made started with neat ( unused ) hydrogenated vegitable ( soybean ) oil AKA Crisco. I had to melt the Crisco on the stove before adding the ethanol/lye mixture. The reaction happened so fast at the elevated temperature that I am not sure if the unreacted melted crisco would have sunk or not in the ethanol/lye. I do know that the end product sunk in ethanol/lye but still floated in water.
The problem with the batch made from crisco was that it is solid at room temperature. No good for biodiesel. However, since soybean oil is naturally unsaturated, biodiesel made from it is liquid.
There is a problem with using unsaturated fats for fuel - they polymerize into 'gunk' in the conditions found in engines and eventually gum up the works.
Naturally saturated veggie oils tend to be expensive and are also usually solid at room temperature. What is needed is a way to use Crisco as a starting point but somehow shorten the hydrocarbon chains so that the saturated fuel can be liquid at room temperature.
Any chemist out there know how to take a methyl or ethyl ester from the biodiesel transesterification process and shorten the hydrocarbon chain? I've heard of cracking, but that sounds like a high temp/pressure/catalyst sort of process that would tend to destroy or remove the alcohol on the end. Any other ideas?
Eat at Joe's.
1) Natural gas, not oil, is used in making commercial fertilizer.
This is an important point from the USA's point of view, since the vast majority of our natural gas comes from domestic sources and Canada.
2) Most natural fuel does NOT use more (fossil) fuel than it produces (in natural fuel).
Corn-based ethanol is the evil fuel you're speaking of. It is indeed a huge energy sink. The only reason it exists is because of huge government subsidies. Biodiesel, on the other hand, is 78% solar-powered. That is, only 22% of the energy in virgin soybean oil-derived biodiesel comes from fossil fuels.
Also consider that animal waste (pig crap) based methanol can be used in place of natural gas, thus completely removing fossil fuels from the biodiesel equation. However, this is not going to happen until one or both of the following happen:
1) consumers demand environmentally-friendly fuel by refusing to use fossil fuels
and/or
2) the demand for oil exceeds the easily-extractable supply of oil, thus raising the economic costs of extracting fossil fuel high enough to where bio-fuels can compete
Of these two alternatives, (2) is the most likely. Already, biodiesel can purchased for a little over $2/gallon in bulk, state fuel taxes included. I give it another 10 years before the increasing world energy demand outstrips its soon-to-peak supply.
As for myself, I drive a 2002 VW New Beetle TDI, which is in stock form (no fuel mods) and is powered by biodiesel. While the biodiesel is more expensive than regular diesel, the fuel economy of my vehicle is high enough (50 mpg) that I still enjoy fuel savings when compared to my gasoline-powered brethren.
Here are some interesting links:
Biodiesel Now
Biodiesel
TDI Club
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
Fryer grease-powered diesel cars are quite popular in the Telluride, Colorado area. There are even entire cable access television shows dedicated to the topic in that area.
ok, so the smart thing to do, i.e., the thing best suited for Darwinian survival of your genes, is to not breed at all? No.
p df) Should all those families not be allowed to have kids? So that # of children is tied to your income?
/. and posting comments, to care more about being up to date on tech news, than about where dinner will come from. how does it gratify you to knock on people who live with nearly nothing, who are trying but have no opportunities?
And although it may not be the smartest thing to do, they will have kids. That's what they are living for. Do you know how many families live in poverty in America, supposedly the wealthiest nation in the world? The low end range is 31 million (http://www.epionline.org/report_poverty_04-2002.
Reproduction is not only a fundamental right, it's one of the requirements for defining life.
As for the biology of populations, if you study it, you should also know not take it as gospel as it is a controversial topic. There have been many occasions throughout human history where scientists stated that the earth can only support X number of people. And again and again, they've been proven wrong as human population grows and grows.
c'mon guys, we're lucky to be able to spend all this time reading
thank you for taking some time out between bong hits to enlighten us all about your paranoid fantasies.
*un-snip*
First, a couple of facts; I don't do bong hits. I read books. You know, those things on the shelf with pages between the covers? :)
And the more I read about history, the more paranoid I do become. In light of current events, I highly recommend Soldat by Siegfired Knappe and Ted Brusaw.
But I'm moving off topic (without drugs even
It's also a fact, (not a fantasy) that the DEA is still attempting to ban the sale and import of hemp products on the laughable premise that hemp THC levels classify it as an illicit substance.
This is a joke in the scientific community.
Because of the rapid, low maintenance growth rate of hemp, it is possilbe to derive much more useable, processed fuel from hemp (hemp oil or methanol) than from corn.
Hemp oil is what the Hemp Car burns (www.hempcar.org) since diesels are really just oil burners.
Comparisons to corn are frequently used because corn has a relatively fast growth rate.
In other words, hemp makes good economic and ecological sense as a petroleum alternative.
This is why hemp scares the hell outta the petroleum industry. That's not paranoia. That's someone with a lot of financial clout protecting their market share (Why the hell do you think we were invaded by Texas? Sorry. I could't resist a little conspiracy theory humor.)
But, apparently, some people are perfectly comfortable with the energy mafia pulling us by the short hairs at the gas pump, because where the hell else are you gonna fill your gas tank?
That is what biofuel is all about. NOT being owned.
But you don't have to believe us paranoid bookworms. This information is well documented.
I'd recommend starting at www.jackherer.com.
As for my paranoid fantasies ? Well, actually, my fantasies are not so paranoid, and they usually involve being abducted by space alien chicks with lots of piercings who are into liquid latex and want me to tattoo them :) Again, off topic, but I felt some clarification was necessary.
And remember kids; If your vote didn't count, they wouldn't bother rigging elections.
While I'm at it: Remember kids, some trolls really do work for the government; because, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog.
Later, trollbreath.
OK, I'm not up on this issue, but I don't see how you can call ethanol "envirofriendly". Yes, burning ethanol produces less pollution than methanol, to say nothing of diesel fuel. But you have to figure in the environmental cost of producing the ethanol. Don't you have to grow sugar beets or something similar, then ferment and refine the result? These are all energy-intensive and unenvironmental processes!
Remember kids, some trolls really do work for the government
Yes that's it, I'm a government agent and you've blown my cover. Congratulations on being a paranoid lunatic.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
If this goes national think how much fatter people will have to get to keep up with the fuel requirements of the entire nation? Billions of gallons of used, vile and totally repugnant left over french fry goo has to come from some where...
also, "hey, we must be close to a restaurant, I smell food!" will become, "I can't tell if we are close to a restaruant, cause it everything smells like food!"
The Government thirst for revenue can be overriding. When I, lived in West Virginia I was so poor that I ran my old truck off the condensate from a local gas well (Illegal AND Dangerious)
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
wouldn't the energy used to grow ,harvest and process th e bio matter into fuel consume more BTUs than would be gained?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Why is anyone surprised that it is possible to run engines on other substances than those sold especially for the purpose?
.....
The Diesel engine (or to give it its proper name, the compression-ignition internal combustion engine) was named after its inventor, Rudolph Diesel, who conceived a modified form of internal combustion engine that could run on heavier fuel than previous models. Initially this would have meant plant oils -- I believe the first Diesel engine was actually run on peanut oil. It works by using a piston to compress the air in a cylinder (incidentally heating it; the Ideal gas Equation says PV=nRT); then squirting in a quantity of fuel. The trick being simply that the fuel must undergo spontaneous combustion at the temperature of the air in the cylinder. The resulting explosion forces the piston back out.
Once a suitable substance to run these compression-ignition engines was found in the form of a petroleum fraction, it naturally became known as Diesel oil.
But *any* substance which explodes when mixed with air at the temperature achieved inside a Diesel engine at TDC (I haven't got one here to measure) will fire such an engine. The closer its other physical properties to the designed fuel, then the less modification will be required to the fuel pump system. In fact, older Ford and Peugeot engines run fine on cooking oil. Strain it first if it's been used.
By the way: Don't pay the duty. Vegetable oil is not producing extracyclical CO2 (the kind that contributes to climate change) - every carbon atom in the plant came from CO2 in the atmosphere in the first place. But, we are told, the duty was levied to reduce the amount of carbon entering the cycle. Let yourself get taken to Crown court, and then you only have to convince two people out of twelve to acquit you on the basis that the law is unjust
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'm a paranoid lunatic because I made noise over what appears to be collusion and conspiracy in the energy industry.
How silly of me. That would never happen in America!
Yeah, your probably right. Enron was just a fluke.
All the other corporate giants with their fingers in the pork barrel are really fine upstanding U.S. corporate citizens who believe in protecting the environment, avoiding armed conflict over foreign oil fields, and wouldn't mind at all if they lost centralized control over energy production and sales if hemp, corn, soybean oil, or french fries (uh... I meant Freedom Fries) became a viable source of energy for millions of consumers.
The HempCar probably isn't real (www.hempcar.org). They prolly faked it on a soundstage just like the lunar landings!
Keep up the great work 007. Blind allegiance to the party line probably will land you on a rewarding career path. The last thing any Iron Triangle employer wants in an employee who questions motives.
Keep your head down and your mouth shut and you'll go far.
I figure one of two things: 1. Either you actually believe that Corporate America and the government does not spend money on manipulating public opinion,
2. or you'd have me and everyone else believe that.
You're either unbelievably naive, have a vested interest in spreading FUD about alternative energy and anyone who proffers such notions, or, like I already said and believe, you are just another slashdot troll.
And if you really don't believe there are government funded trolls, then I have some land in Florida I'd like to sell to you.
Cheers!
ok so we've got 3 scenarios. either I'm right and you're a paranoid whackjob, or I'm wrong and there's a vast conspiracy that you can't do anything about anyway, or I'm a troll and you fell for it hook line and sinker.
any way you look at it, you lose.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
You've helped "do something about it" already, by extending this little thread, you've allowed me to publish my "paranoid" ideas quite lucidly. Specifically, the threat which biofuel poses to the petroleum industry; be it "greasel", "hempoil", or whatever else works.
The entire time you've only responded with namecalling: "stoner", lunatic", "whackjob".
Allow me to encapsulate this entire discussion:
Me: "Biofuel is an economic and ecologically sound alternative to energy sources derived from petroleum. Therefore big oil is scared of it."
You: "Your a stoner, lunatic, paranoid whackjob."
Me: "You're obviously either a naive or paid troll."
You: "Your a stoner, lunatic, whackjob with paranoid fantasies."
13,000 miles on hemp oil in an un-modified Mercedes diesel is no fantasy (www.HempCar.org). The fact that the our so called "liberal media" hasn't published anything about it is no fantasy either.
C'mon. Give us some hard facts to deal with about the pragmatic difficulties of biofuel alternatives.
Make me go back to the drawing board and do more research and reading. Gimme some book titles or journal articles. Help enlighten the debate.
What you (a troll) or I (a paranoid bookworm) are is irrelevant to the topic.
De-centralized growth and development of biofuel alternatives would solve a whole host of global problems which are assuredly going to worsen over the next several decades.
Here's where I bow out of this thread.
Congratulations. You get the last word in.
Make it a great closing argument. Try to stay on topic.
yours truly,
the paranoid freak
PS: We should do this again sometime. ;)
the fact that you continue to respond to this thread suggests a pattern of obsessive-compulsive behavior for which you should seek medication - and I'm not talking about the stuff growing in your closet.
and remember, you're not allowed to reply. doesn't that make your brain itch??
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Agriculture has a huge environmental impact. There's toxic runoff (even with "organic" methods), erosion, replacement of natural growth with an artificial monoculture. Worst of all, you have to burn a lot of fuel (and create a lot of greenhouse gases) to grow a crop. Nobody who cares about the environment should advocate more agriculture than is necessary to feed people or produce other necessary products.
Not that non-fossil diesels are necessarily a bad idea. These guys burn vegetable oil in their diesel boats so they won't spread particulate all over the marine sanctuary they cruise over. But that's a limited, specific goal. As a general replacement for fossil fuels, "crop" fuels are just plain stupid.