renth

Check out this excellent information about making biodiesel, legally.

http://www.sustainability.ofm.uwa.edu.au/page/98221

Amazulu

Good link Renth. Biodiesel is definitely part of the solution to replace oil. I only buy biodiesel for my cars now. Gull are the only oil company to sell it in WA & hats off to them for that.

rugbymatt

I really dont want to start a major debate about this but Bio diesel is only a short term measure, the land mass that would be needed for all the oil, which is generally palm nut would see,(and in actual fact is seeing) vast areas of rain forest cut down!

mr mover

Read the homepage on the web site ................. mm

sharon45

Can't be bothered with all that
I just pop a pill in my tank every fill and get 15% increase mpg and reduced emissions by 75% .
and no its not an additive but an organic combustion engine conditioner.


sharon

rugbymatt

Yeah i did! At the last FOE meeting i attended we had a leading scientist explain exactly how much oil each suitable plant produced, including Rape, and exactly how much would be needed to be grown to supply the oil needed now and in the future! Thats all my point was. Mmmmm

gruffbrown

I posted this somewhere in the sceptic forum.

2 grand will get you one of these.



Nip down to your local Burger King or MickeyD's, pick up a 50 gallon drum of Fry Oil for nothing, add some Ethanol and Lye, mix it up, strain off the greasy crap and plonk it in your diesel. Runs better than the normal stuff although you smell like a chip pan going down the road.

cresta57

There was a young bloke from Lincolnshire used to visit all the chippies and takeaways collecting their old oil for a small fee, he added a quantity of old engine oil also collected for a small fee and some ethanol that he had to buy. He used it to successfully run his and his fathers car right up until HM Customs and Excise prosecuted him for defrauding the govt of V.A.T
The Duty payable per litre of "chip shop fuel" is set at £0.27 per litre.
This is a short piece from another forum I read, I cannot garantee it's accuracy 100% but the SODIUM METHOXIDE warning is accurate:

Diesel is the NAME of the original engine designer

DERV =Diesel Engined Road Vehicles (Fuel for the use of) military terminology for the type of heavy oil used in said engines to differentiate it from the other types of heavy oil in military use. Over time this has been shortened in common parlance to 'diesel'

Rudolph diesel's original engine was designed to run on powdered coal, and exploded quite quickly. Eventually he came up with the engine to run on peanut oil to industrialise the 'third world' (can't remember the exact phrase). Take up for cars was limited by the pump technology at the time so largely used in commercial vehicles competing with coal, steam.

So any fuel used in a diesel engine is 'diesel' in common parlance and is available in three types.

Fossil, a petroleum oil product

Bio- (RME) made from vegetable oil chemically altered to remove the some gglycerin content. The process uses a combination of chemicals which are very nasty when combined, and need to be washed out of the produced fuel very tthroughly The only safe way to make this is a closed industrial system and the by- products are a low grade glycerin (which is causing disposal problems in Europe)and dirty water form the washing. Calorific value (= power) is 10-12% down on fossil diesel as glycerin's are removed.
BE Warned
The catalyst used to make RME is made from Sodium Hydroxide AND Methanol. This makes SODIUM METHOXIDE. Go check this out... (banned from military use as a nerve agent by one of the Geneva conventions)
Have a look at pg 53 of 'From fryer to the fuel tank' the 'bible' for home RME production " WARNING : SODIUM METHOXIDE IS EXTREMELY CAUSTIC AND WILL CAUSE IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE IF IT COMES INTO CONTACT WITH HUMAN SKIN DUE TO ITS BASIC NATURE, IT WILL DISSOLVE SKIN WHILE DEADENING NERVES. THIS MEANS, IF A PERSON COMES IN CONTACT WITH IT , IT WILL EAT AWAY THEIR SKIN BUT THEY WILL NOT FEEL IT. EXTREME CAUTION MUST BE EXERCISED WHEN USING SODIUM METHOXIDE. Their capitals not mine



Bio (MUCO) used to be called MWVF. Made from veg oil. Uses solvents to reduce oil viscosity so current pumps will cope with it. Best made from very good quality used cooking oil with Low FFA and water content. This means production limited by oil supply. Low energy input for production but takes time. Power is reportedly up as solvents improve combustion, Emissions as tested ay MOT are DOWN by 75% . Negligible>2% by-product is oil too heavy to modify

Wol

Plus, to grow the amount of biomass that's necessary you need vast amounts of - wait for it! - water. (Now, what is it that we're short of? Let me see - I remember! Water!)

Then of course you need fertilizer - lots of it. That requires energy. Making and transporting it produces greenhouse gas.

Depending on what source you refer to, ethanol production actually ADDS a small percentage to CO2 emissions overall.

And the corn required to fill one SUV tank with ethanol would feed one person for a year (New Scientist this week).

Like everything else - it all comes down in the end to population. The planet cannot support 6.5Bn of us even at our present consumption. In less than one generation the population is going to be some 9.5Bn. Whatever is done to string out our resources, without drastic reductions in population we are heading for disaster within the next 20 or 30 years. Of course disease, wars and famine will cull the biomass of humanity somewhat but I believe the figures already take culling into account.

I saw Al Gore's film last week - he has four children himself. He's part of the problem, but no-one seems able to mention it. Excessive breeding is a taboo subject, like any criticism of a religion!

gruffbrown

Lye (Caustic Soda) is Sodium Hydroxide, you can buy it in the stores here, which would explain why the presenter of the show I saw it on, had a mullet and jumped around a lot.

Amazulu

Sure Bio-D is only part of the solution, same for ethanol, but it needs to be done. Brazil has fuel self-sufficiency because of bio-fuels. Aussie farmers are always moaning that they can't make money because of imports. So let them make bio-fuel instead. Australia has enough farmland to produce all it's food needs & some of it's fuel needs too. It has to be done & it will be done.

ozzieeagle

Did anyone notice this article in the paper recently.... About a tree that is easy to harvest for bio diesel.


http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/...431695812.html

Could be the easiest method yet, how much of the tropical north would be needed to run Australia ?

Wol

See above: water is the big problem. Brazil produces most of the world's ethanol - but it rains all the time there! And they are cutting down millions of sq miles of rainforest illegally to crop for biofuel.

Swerv-o

Here's another thing...

Producing Fertilizer requires the Haber process, which uses lots of energy.

Producing Ethanol produces lots of CO2

9.5 Bn people breathing out - produces lots of CO2...

I think I can see a way through this...

S

Wol

?????????????

Drink the ethanol?

Stop breathing out?