Author Topic: Let The Revolution Begin! (Read 1477 times)

Chairboy · « **Reply #45 on:** May 15, 2006, 04:50:31 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by rpm
Biodiesel costs around 60 cents a gallon to produce from old cooking oil. I'd call that economically viable.

Gotta chime in here... is that figure sustainable? There's a limited amount of used cooking oil to pull from, and a very small pool of biodiesel users. Americans consume something like 350 million gallons of gas each day. How many gallons of cooking oil are used each day? I read that about 5 gallons of cooking oil are used per american each year, which, multiplied by 300 million (roughly the population of the US) is 1.5 billion.

That's 4.3 days of driving on 100% discarded cooking oil, adjust upwards slightly when you mix it with petroleum.

Biodiesel is very cool, and I'm thinking of maybe getting a diesel as my next car so I can run it on things other than gas, but a long term biodiesel strategy for the nation (instead of just a few hobbyists) is going to need more than used cooking oil, and that will change the economics drastically.

john9001 · « **Reply #46 on:** May 15, 2006, 05:09:40 PM »

i don't see what the problem with "biodiesel"is, back in 1962 when i was in the marines we had "multi-fuel" trucks, they would run on anything that would burn, corn oil, banana oil, peanut oil, etc.

the trucks had a specific gravity sensor in the fuel system that would adjust the mixture for what even was in the fuel line, you could mix any fuels in the tank and the truck would sort it out, you could even burn gasoline in it but you had to add motor oil with the gas to lube the pumps.

i think people that say biodiesel won't work don't want it to work.

SirLoin · « **Reply #47 on:** May 15, 2006, 05:12:08 PM »

You silly fuel...Think one step of the war machine & invest

Chairboy · « **Reply #48 on:** May 15, 2006, 05:41:25 PM »

John, nobody is saying biodiesel doesn't work technologically. That'd be stupid, I've seen plenty of cars running on salvaged cooking oil.

The problem is creating enough of it on a national scale.

rpm · « **Reply #49 on:** May 15, 2006, 10:05:02 PM »

Ahh, but we could. Take all those agriculture subsidies that we are shelling out for farmers not to grow and make them grow corn, soy, peanuts or sugar beets. It's a win - win situation.

I agree that there's not enough used oil to go around, but if they start mass producing fuel grade oil there will be.

Toad · « **Reply #50 on:** May 15, 2006, 10:07:10 PM »

IIRC, though, right now it takes more energy to grow/process those crops than they produce in ethanol or other forms of energy.

It's a net negative use.

If they get the enzyme process down to where you can use the ag waste for ethanol it'd be a net positive in a big way. We're not there yet though.

john9001 · « **Reply #51 on:** May 15, 2006, 10:27:17 PM »

80% of the cars in Brazil run on ethanol, that did not happen overnight. It took years of work, not years of saying "we need a energy policy"

Toad · « **Reply #52 on:** May 15, 2006, 10:29:17 PM »

These are the things that give me hope that things will change:

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Iogen Corporation announced today that Goldman Sachs & Co. of New York has invested $30 Million (CDN) in its renewable cellulose ethanol technology.

"Goldman is the first major Wall Street firm to make a commitment to cellulose ethanol," says Iogen CEO Brian Foody. "Renewable fuels like cellulose ethanol are one of the main options President Bush recently highlighted to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.

Goldman's investment gives it a minority stake in Iogen, the only company to be operating a demonstration facility that converts agriculture materials like straw, corn stalks, and switchgrass to ethanol. Goldman joins the Royal Dutch/Shell Group as a major investor. The funds will be used to accelerate Iogen's commercialization program.

and

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The Shell Group of Companies has formed a joint venture with Iogen of Canada to produce ethanol from waste materials like rice straw, a company official said yesterday.

rpm · « **Reply #53 on:** May 15, 2006, 11:43:06 PM »

Just remember, ethanol and biodiesel are 2 different fuels. While corn makes great biodiesel, it makes a so-so ethanol. I'm not sure about cellulose's properties, but sugar beet ethanol is 5 times more efficient than corn.

Basicly, any vegetable oil will make suitable biodiesel. You just have to remove the glycerin.

Chairboy · « **Reply #54 on:** June 10, 2006, 06:25:40 PM »

Thread resurrection! I just read something in Wired that's relevant to this discussion:

Quote

Fuel by the numbers
Gallons of biodiesel that can be made from one acre of soybeans: 50
Arable acres in the US: 427 million
Gallons of gasoline used by the average American driver in a year: 464
Drivers in the US: 198 million
Arable acres needed to make enough biodiesel for all of them: 1.8 billion

This suggests that it isn't currently feasible to produce enough biodiesel domestically to fully supplant petroleum consumption. We either need a better crop to produce it from (I don't know where soybeans fall on the scale) or to plan for acquiring it from elsewhere.

Food for thought....

rpm · « **Reply #55 on:** June 10, 2006, 11:43:57 PM »

That sounds like an awfully low number of acreage. That's probably the number of acres in soybean production as of now. There are plenty of suitable desolate areas that could be put into production with proper irrigation.

Soybeans are not the only source of suitable oil, either. There are numerous crops that produce usable amounts of oils that aren't being used today. Remember this technology is still in it's infantcy. While I doubt that we could ever get to 100%, I believe we could feasably get to over 75% with the right leadership. This is what the Secretaries of Energy, Agriculture and Transportation should get together on.

Debonair · « **Reply #56 on:** June 11, 2006, 12:32:15 AM »

i read that sugar beet & sugar cane are teh best (evar) for making fuel out of

lazs2 · « **Reply #57 on:** June 11, 2006, 08:54:10 AM »

kinky is a flaming liberal who loves nothing better than telling people what to do and growing government..... no wonder you like him rpm.

He does talk dirty tho so that makes him really cool. Who cares how much socialism he adds to your life so long as you can talk dirty right?

I would never be able to run for office. I would be glad to debate the likes of kinky tho. friggin liberal.

lazs

AWMac · « **Reply #58 on:** June 11, 2006, 09:19:59 AM »

I say we Merkins run up to CanDUH and vote...vote for the most extreme thing you can possibly think of...like CanaDuhs common language should relly be French, Oui, err Eh? Lets vote on leagelizing Herion in major CaNucks Cities... All Lesbian Hockey Players wives can Marry each other... and Nash can find that LumberJack he once had...

Mac

Nash, What's happening in Canuckland?

rpm · « **Reply #59 on:** June 11, 2006, 11:48:02 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by lazs2
kinky is a flaming liberal who loves nothing better than telling people what to do and growing government..... no wonder you like him rpm.

He does talk dirty tho so that makes him really cool. Who cares how much socialism he adds to your life so long as you can talk dirty right?

I would never be able to run for office. I would be glad to debate the likes of kinky tho. friggin liberal.

lazs

So what your saying is Kinky has the cajones to stand up and run and you have the cajones to sit at a keyboard and whine on a BBS.