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Utilizing Bio-fuel Beyond Experimental Use
grumpyman writes "A C$14 million factory near Montreal started producing biodiesel fuel two weeks ago from the bones, innards and other parts of farm animals. At full capacity plant will produce 35 million liters (9.2 million U.S. gallons) of biodiesel a year, the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing 16,000 light trucks or 22,000 cars from the roads."
The second part where the fuel comes from peanut or other oils- I fail to see how that can be beneficial. Farm tractors burn diesel to harvest the peanuts, fetiziliers made from and processed with petroleum are throw into the field, and then energy is needed to harvest the oils. If this can all be done with some much greater output than input- then great- but from what I have seen- often times these other factors are not taken into account.
Farm tractors burn diesel to harvest the peanuts
And farmers can cut the process's net carbon contribution by running their tractors on biodiesel. In the future they may be modified to burn straight vegetable oil, using diesel only to start up and shut down the engine.
fetiziliers made from and processed with petroleum are throw into the field
Not all farming methods use petrofertilizers.
Tractors and other farm machinery can run on biodiesel themselves, and fertilisers don't need to be petroleum based. Yes, one needs to be aware of those things in order to ensure that the whole process is indeed carbon neutral, but it's not hard to do, it may add a little to the cost.
The real question is, when you factor in all the costs associated with hydrogen - new infrastructure, new vehicles, renewable energy sources to manufacture the hydrogen (without which it is pointless), is there any way hydrogen can be cheaper than biodiesel?
Oh no... it's the future.
A couple of years ago, a company called Changing World Technologies was all the news. They had perfected a process for converting garbage to oil. There was an article in Discovery magazine. They built a plant to convert turkey guts and had plans to roll out the technology to several more plants. It really hasn't moved forward a lot. I presume they are having some kind of trouble. www.changingworldtech.com
One of the statistics that Changing World cited was that if you could convert all the agricultural WASTE in the US to oil, that would do away with the need to import oil. If that statistic is true, then what Rothsay has done is really important. If their process is actually economical then they have beaten Changing World to the prize.
The other thing not to be ignored is that the Changing World process, and this one too presumably, destroys the prions that cause mad cow disease. This process may take animal carcasses out of the livestock feed chain by providing an alternate market for slaughterhouse refuse and dead stock.
On the other hand, their business stinks, literally, and I don't expect that to change. Anyway, I hope they succeed.