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Brew Your Own Auto Fuel For 41 Cents A Gallon
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Damon Toal-Rossi of Iowa City, Iowa had enough of the high price of gasoline, so it didn't take too much for his friend to talk him into switching to biodiesel, an alternative fuel based on soy or vegetable oil. But after a few months of driving 10 miles to a biodiesel fuel station he decided it was time to start brewing his own. It didn't take him long to find a recipe for biodiesel, and with used cooking oil that he gets for free from a nearby restaurant, he figures he's now getting 44 miles per gallon out of his diesel powered VW Golf and only paying 41 cents a gallon. According to the National Biodiesel Board the number of biodiesel stations in the US rose by 50% last year (to a whopping 200). The president of the American Soybean Association claims biodiesel has almost the same amount of energy as petroleum-based diesel, but cleans an engine's fuel injectors and cuts down on the number of required oil changes. Perhaps these are some of the reasons why diesel powered cars are making a comeback in the US."
Sounds like a fun project though. The warnings about the various poisons certainly got my attention.
sulli
RTFJ.
Don't be too surprised if you find a line on the 2004 state and federal tax return to declare the amount of fuel you brewed so that they can assess back road taxes.
Biodiesel is cleaner in every respect except that it generates more NOx. NOx and particulates are the primary pollution problems with diesel engines in general, though the industry is making progress. Also, of course, the "free oil from the restaurant next door" solution won't scale, and will probably only last until some entrepreneur starts buying restaurant oil and reselling it to biodiesel manufacturers. That said, the fact that this closes the carbon loop is a huge win, not to mention the potential for energy independence.
Actually, getting free used oil is easier than you think owing to:
a) Any restaurant that does frying has used oil. (Even that mom'n'pop boutique place you like to frequent)
b) Restaurants normally have to pay someone to have their used oil hauled away.
People are not starving because there is not enough food in the world, but because in too many places the distribution system is not very efficient, or is actively perverted by armies, dictators, and other autocrats. If we can find a way to use inexpensive, renewable plant matter to generate energy, it will ultimately improve the lives of people all over the world, especially in those places too poor to buy oil right noww.
"b) Restaurants normally have to pay someone to have their used oil hauled away."
Not anymore -- most restaraunts get money back for recycling purposes...some have even proscecuted folks that have taken their cooking oil because while it makes very little money -- it is still a few hundred $$$s a month for them.
I am an alumi of Humboldt State University, the area is known for its hippies and agricultural exports (cough). On campus we had the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT). CCAT is completely off the power grid and supports most any form of recycling, and green energy. CCAT gives demonstrations on how to create biodiesel, I believe they even have an old diesel Mercedes running off the stuff.
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CCAT's website includes a recipe for biodiesel:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/biodies
I've been told that most of the public trasportation in Berkeley, CA runs off of biodiesel (?).
Bingo, it's great while there are only a half dozen people who try it per town. As soon as more than one person goes and asks an owner for their used oil guess what? No more free used oil. Crude oil prices are what they are because it's a traded commodity, not because it's hard to get or difficult to refine. What people are willing to pay is what dictates the price, not the threat of running out.
Create a demand and like everything else, prices will rise.
Not that I'm totally against the idea, but you can't base the impact on a real economy on a test case of a few people here and there.
Yes, but if everyone in America were to convert to using biodiesel, then there'd be an impetus to make it commercially on a large scale. Essentially, we'd have farms producing either vegetable or soy oil for use as fuel. You can make biodiesel out of fresh oil even easier than out of used oil.
Great, so then every cop in a 10-mile radius is magically drawn to your car. Even if you're not doing anything wrong it would still be unnerving as hell leading a parade of squad cars all trying to get a contact sugar high from your exhaust.
If *anything* changed step-function-wise to 50% it would be a problem.
Most of the biodiesel in use today in the US is not from used vegetable oil - it's from new soybean (and other seed) oil. Put the American farmer back into the energy loop growing soybeans and take foreign oil sources out - how is that a "bad solution"?
"Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your order?"
"Yes, I'd like a Big Mac, large fry, small diet coke, and filler-up with McDiesel."
"Would you like to Biggie-size that to include an oil change?"
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
They recycle vegetable oil?? Right, tell me what restaurants are using recycled oil please. I'm not eating there!
First, the amount of land required to grow enough oil for all the cars currently operating has been estimated to be about the same amount of land contained in the continental US, and I believe there are a couple of other uses people had in mind for that land too. I've seen similar estimates for the UK fleet vs. UK landmass.
Second, our current style of agri-business uses large quantities of fossil fuels in the production of crops. Fertilizers, herbicides, and pestidcides are all produced using fossil fuels, and actually require more than a gallon of oil input to generate a gallon of vegetable oil. This isn't really a problem if you're using oil that was already purchased by McDonalds since the oil would have been produced and consumed anyway, but producing biodiesel as the primary aim of the operation is simply counter-productive. Unless you're buying organic biodiesel, and let's face it, there's only so much manure to go around.
Delivering militantly anti-commercial music to all two people who care!
Remember that while the addage, "if everyone drove these cars, the price of these cars fuel would skyrocket" is true, it ignorse the fact that by having easily substitable goods, you change the price elasticity of demand. Coke and Pepsi share similar prices because Coke knows that if they double their prices, people will just buy Pepsi.
:)
So while there might be a bit of an increase in the price of diesel or biodiesel, the price of gasoline would be affected as well because we would consume less of it. The more alternatives you have for an activity, the more in touch with reality their pricing is. Take CDs -- their pricing should be dropping because DVDs and video games are (bang for the buck) much more effective. However, because the RIAA is ignorant, they're trying to use price fixing. Naturally, this isn't working as the price elasticity for that good has been increasing in the past few years
Every time there is another way to solve a problem, we all benefit.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
No, not really. It has more to do with skyrocketing gasoline costs and the fact that TDI technology is miles above the old diesels. It's quieter, more efficient, more powerful, the blocks are lighter thanks to superior materials, and TDI isn't nearly as sensitive to the cold- it doesn't even need the glowplugs above 40 or so degrees. The glowplug system is tied into the central locking, so when you approach the car and unlock the doors, it figures out if it's cold enough to need the glowplugs and starts warming them; as a result, the car's ready to go before you are, most of the time. Diesel is also much more prevalent now that there are a lot more diesels in pickups, vans, etc used by small businesses and non-fleet operators.
That addresses many of the concerns the public had about diesel- hard to find fuel, noisy, heavy, and a bitch in the cold.
A lot of people get hybrids wrong too, thinking it's all the hippies buying them. Dealers say that was true initially, now it's just regular commuters who want the most efficient car. Biodiesel is a boutique fuel aside from use in fleets in 2% mixes to replace sulfur in low-sulfur fuels.
Please help metamoderate.
True, diesel may be making a comeback in the U.S., but not so in California (unless you count pickup trucks).
I was in the market for a new car a few months ago and (after renting one in Germany) was very interested in a Volkswagen Jetta. I saw the Volkswagen offered a TDI (turbo-diesel injection) model which had more horsepower, better gas-mileage and lower emissions than the standard unleaded gasoline engine. However, for some unknown reason, the TDI model is not approved for sale or import into California,
Upon further research, I've found some BMW and Mercedes-Benz models that offer diesel engines (also with lower emissions and better mileage than their unleaded counterparts) that are available for sale in the U.S., but not in California.
It strikes me as very odd that in a state as liberal and environmentally minded as California, a lower emission engine isn't available in these cars. My guess is that some old-timer remembers the diesels that belched black smoke all day and doesn't realize how many advances have been made in diesel engines.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
I would worry less about the fuel filter and more about the plastic parts in fuel system dissolving. A number of them are made of plastics that are great in gasoline, M85, and regular dead-dinosaur diesel, but will melt away in Biodiesel, especially the European stuff made out of rapeseed oil. I think it's safe to say you will void your warranty if you use this stuff. Yes, I work in automotive fuel systems.
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.