Slashdot Mirror
Breakthrough in Biodiesel Production
MGR writes "National Geographic is reporting that Japanese scientists have discovered a way to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel with a much less expensive catalyst (between 10 and 50 times cheaper) than what is currently used. From the article: 'Any vegetable oil can become fuel, but not until its fatty acids are converted to chemical compounds known as esters. Currently the acids used to convert the fatty acids are prohibitively expensive. Michikazu Hara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have used common, inexpensive sugars to form a recyclable solid acid that does the job on the cheap.'"
I hope we can finally dump our dependence on foreign oil. If this sort of thing really comes through, the Saudis are going to be PISSED.
with a much less expensive catalyst (between 10 and 50 times cheaper) than what is currently used.
Note: the catalyst is 10 - 50 times cheaper, not biodisel fuel itself, while the breakthrough is meaningful, the headline is misleading. I'd be curious to know what percentage of the total cost of producing biodisel is related to the cost of this catalyst.
No Sigs!
Even though it is a good idea to reduce costs whenever possible, but from what I have seen, even when using lye (which is basic, not acidic), it is about 70 cents cheaper than regular fuel. Biodiesel = Used vegtable oil + lye + methanol + mixture motor, containers and filters.
This reminds me of an article I read a few months ago about using corn to produce ethanol on a large scale as a renewable resource. Follow-up articles pointed out that corn (maize, specifically) isn't a particularly efficient crop, which meant that the environmental impact of drilling for oil and depleting oil reserves was just being shifted to depleting topsoil. Very much a "no free lunch" reaction.
If this biodiesel process can be applied to enough different types of plants, then it should be possible to pick and choose crops based on what does well in a given area -- after all, we don't have to worry about market pressures and what people want to eat, it's just going to be converted into fuel -- which should minimize the effects of choosing hihg-impact crops.
catalysts? acids? expensive? the definition of a catalyst is that they do not get transformed in an reaction but simply speed it up. In this case it rather sounds as if the acids are a simple consumed reactant.
If I were from one of those square-type states with lots of farms, I would be on this in a second. It would be the holy grail for farmers: a way to link national security with farm supports.
If the government could help farmers grow soybeans and in return reduce dependence on foreign oil, both left and right wingers would be happy. Imagine that! Good for security, good for American jobs, good for the environment, and even good for business (cars would need some retooling).
Where do I sign up? Oh, it's one of those "This technology will be really cool when it becomes available in 10-15 years" stories, huh?
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
I don't understand what the big fuss about biodiesel is... almost all diesel vehicles can be cheaply and quickly converted to use straight vegetable oil as fuel. Granted, you have to start and end on diesel/biodiesel to warm up the vegetable oil. Used vegetable oil can be found for free at most restaurants and the process of filtering it to be used as fuel is relatively painless. Instead of converting masses of perfectly useable vegetable oil to another form, why not just use it as is?
Oh... yeah, that's right... if people pushed the use of straight vegetable oil then they probably couldn't justify selling biodiesel for $4-$6 a gallon.
sig.
Evidently you skipped class when they covered photosynthesis.
All that reduced carbon in the plant-oils COMES FROM CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE.
Thus, biodiesel is sustainable.
The *real question* is, how much energy from fertilizer does it take to make this biodiesel? I'd understood that to be the big expense (along with the water,) and not the processing, but I could be mistaken.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Can that be right? One acre is barely enough for a horse. Either I slipped a decimal point or horses are really inefficient.
The real problem with biofuels is not efficiency. It is chemical conversion. Getting the molecules into the proper shape at low cost will take a lot of clever chemistry that hasn't been done yet. The "breakthrough" under discussion is one piece of the puzzle.
Sorry, don't see this as a solution for anything. Right now we have the tree huggers complaining about us using fossil fuels in our evil SUVs. At the same time other leftist groups complaining that farmers are growing grain to feed to cows so we can eat meat. If that food was used for direct human consumption it could help end world hunger, or something like that. With biodiesel the argument would be we are growing food to power our evil SUVs instead of feeding people. Some people would not like it.
And that's why he said "on a $/watt basis."
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Where do I sign up? Oh, it's one of those "This technology will be really cool when it becomes available in 10-15 years" stories, huh?
Biodiesel is already a good business and has seen exponential growth in the US for the past 5 years (nearly doubling in output each year).
Why aren't you growing it? I don't know. But I'm fueling up with it.
In absolute terms, the volume is still but a dent in our energy supply. But then there is also that "square state" interest resulting in Minnesota mandating a 2% minimum blend of biodiesel in all diesel sold. In Germany, nearly 5% of all diesel-type fuel sold is biodiesel. As alternative energy goes, that's one heck of a gain especially when you consider the very favorable energy balance associated w/the bioidiesel lifecycle.
What does your link have to do with biodiesel? That whole article concerns running a different fuel, petroleum diesel.
OTOH if you had even Googled "biodiesel carcinogens" you would know that one of the benefits of BD is exhaust that is 90% less carcinogenic than exhaust from petro-diesel. One of the reasons its less toxic is because BD reduces particulates and unburned hydrocarbons.
The main downfall of BD at the tailpipe is NOX, and even then only a slight increase. It can be argued that reducing unbuned hydrocarbons, even with a 5% bump in NOX output, has a net positive effect as far as ozone and smog are concerned.
Their business is transportation, processing and delivery. Whether they are moving and refining petrolium or veggie oil it's the same basic ball game.
If I were to fear anyone it would be Big Agriculture, not Big Oil.
Comments should be like skirts. Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject
Burning is the crudest possible use of petroleum. Petroleum based materials exploit the complex molecules left in hydrocarbons by life processes in a much more important way: as structural features. It costs orders of magnitude more energy to synthetically create that kind of structure than we can generate by burning it to release that bond-energy. However, today's energy is considered more valuable than tomorrow's plastic, so we just blow the stuff up.
I agree that petroleum will be exhausted, regardless of alternatives. But hopefully finding new energy sources will let us use it in much more far-sighted ways. This should be right up there in the benefits list, alongside environmental advantages and the opening of foreign policy options.