BIODIESEL anyone?

[Pure]

what say you experts, laypersons, pornsters, erotists, devotees of reason, disciples of id?

Biodiesel is diesel oil produced form biological sources, be they soybeans, wood chips, or, in the case below, algae. Some diesel oil burning cars and trucks could use biodiesel with little of no modifications.


Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae

Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, Physics Department

(revised August 2004)

As more evidence comes out daily of the ties between the leaders of petroleum producing countries and terrorists (not to mention the human rights abuses in their own countries), the incentive for finding an alternative to petroleum rises higher and higher. The environmental problems of petroleum have finally been surpassed by the strategic weakness of being dependent on a fuel that can only be purchased from tyrants.

The economic strain on our country resulting from the $100-150 billion we spend every year buying oil from other nations, combined with the occasional need to use military might to protect and secure oil reserves our economy depends on just makes matters worse (and using military might for that purpose just adds to the anti-American sentiment that gives rise to terrorism). Clearly, developing alternatives to oil should be one of our nation's highest priorities.

In the United States, oil is primarily used for transportation - roughly two-thirds of all oil use, in fact. So, developing an alternative means of powering our cars, trucks, and buses would go a long way towards weaning us, and the world, off of oil. While the so-called "hydrogen economy" receives a lot of attention in the media, there are several very serious problems with using hydrogen as an automotive fuel.

For automobiles, the best alternative at present is clearly biodiesel, a fuel that can be used in existing diesel engines with no changes, and is made from vegetable oils or animal fats rather than petroleum.

In this paper, I will first examine the possibilities of producing biodiesel on the scale necessary to replace all petroleum transportation fuels in the U.S.

I. How much biodiesel?

First, we need to understand exactly how much biodiesel would be needed to replace all petroleum transportation fuels. So, we need to start with how much petroleum is currently used for that purpose. Per the Department of Energy's statistics, each year the US consumes roughly 60 billion gallons of petroleum diesel and 120 billion gallons of gasoline.

First, we need to realize that spark-ignition engines that run on gasoline are generally about 40% less efficient than diesel engines. So, if all spark-ignition engines are gradually replaced with compression-ignition (Diesel) engines for running biodiesel, we wouldn't need 120 billion gallons of biodiesel to replace that 120 billion gallons of gasoline.

To be conservative, we will assume that the average gasoline engine is 35% less efficient, so we'd need 35% less diesel fuel to replace that gasoline. That would work out to 78 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Combine that with the 60 billion gallons of diesel already used, for a total of 138 billion gallons. Now, biodiesel is about 5-8% less energy dense than petroleum diesel, but its greater lubricity and more complete combustion offset that somewhat, leading to an overall fuel efficiency about 2% less than petroleum diesel.

So, we'd need about 2% more than that 138 billion gallons, or 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel. So, this figure is based on vehicles equivalent to those in use today, but with compression-ignition (Diesel) engines running on biodiesel, rather than a mix of petroleum diesel and gasoline.

Combined diesel-electric hybrids in wide use, as well as fewer people driving large SUVs when they don't need such a vehicle would of course bring this number down considerably, but for now we'll just stick with this figure. (note - my point here is not to claim that conservation is not worthwhile, rather to strictly look at the issue of replacing our current use of fuel with biodiesel - to see how achievable that is).

I would like to point out though that a preferable scenario would include a shift to diesel-electric hybrid vehicles (preferably with the ability to be recharged and drive purely on electric power for a short range, perhaps 20-40 miles, to provide the option of zero emissions for in-city driving), and with far fewer people buying 6-8,000 pound SUVs merely to commute to work in by themselves.

Those changes could drastically reduce the amount of fuel required for our automotive transportation, and are technologically feasibly currently (see for example Chrysler's Dodge Intrepid ESX3, built under Clinton's PNGV program - a full-size diesel electric hybrid sedan that averaged 72 mpg in mixed driving 6, 7).

One of the biggest advantages of biodiesel compared to many other alternative transportation fuels is that it can be used in existing diesel engines without modification, and can be blended in at any ratio with petroleum diesel. This completely eliminates the "chicken-and-egg" dilemma that other alternatives have, such as hydrogen powered fuel cells.

For hydrogen vehicles, even when (and if) vehicle manufacturers eventually have production stage vehicles ready (which currently cost around $1 million each to make), nobody would buy them unless there was already a wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system in place. But, no companies would be interested in building that wide scale hydrogen fuel production and distribution system until a significant number of fuel cell vehicles are on the road, so that consumers are ready to start using it. With a single hydrogen fuel pump costing roughly $1 million, installing just one at each of the 176,000 fuel stations across the US would cost $176 billion - a cost that can be completely avoided with liquid biofuels that can use our current infrastructure.

With biodiesel, since the same engines can run on conventional petroleum diesel, manufacturers can comfortably produce diesel vehicles before biodiesel is available on a wide scale - as some manufacturers already are (the same can be said for flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on ethanol, gasoline, or any blend of the two). As biodiesel production continues to ramp up, it can go into the same fuel distribution infrastructure, just replacing petroleum diesel either wholly (as B100, or 100% biodiesel), or blended in with diesel. Not only does this eliminate the chicken-and-egg problem, making biodiesel a much more feasible alternative than hydrogen, but also eliminates the huge cost of revamping the nationwide fuel distribution infrastructure.

II. Large scale production

There are two steps that would need to be taken for producing biodiesel on a large scale - growing the feedstocks, and processing them into biodiesel. The main issue that is often contested is whether or not we would be able to grow enough crops to provide the vegetable oil (feedstock) for producing the amount of biodiesel that would be required to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel. So, that is the main issue that will be addressed here.

The point of this article is not to argue that this approach is the only one that makes sense, or that we should ignore other options (there are some other very appealing options as well, and realistically it makes more sense for a combination of options to be used). Rather, the point is merely to look at one option for producing biodiesel, and see if it would be capable of meeting our needs.

One of the important concerns about wide-scale development of biodiesel is if it would displace croplands currently used for food crops. In the US, roughly 450 million acres of land is used for growing crops, with the majority of that actually being used for producing animal feed for the meat industry. Another 580 million acres is used for grassland pasture and range, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service.

This accounts for nearly half of the 2.3 billion acres within the US (only 3% of which, or 66 million acres, is categorized as urban land). For any biofuel to succeed at replacing a large quantity of petroleum, the yield of fuel per acre needs to be as high as possible. At heart, biofuels are a form of solar energy, as plants use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of oils, carbohydrates, proteins, etc.. The more efficient a particular plant is at converting that solar energy into chemical energy, the better it is from a biofuels perspective. Among the most photosynthetically efficient plants are various types of algaes.

The Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program from 1978 through 1996 under the National Renewable Energy Laboratory known as the "Aquatic Species Program". The focus of this program was to investigate high-oil algaes that could be grown specifically for the purpose of wide scale biodiesel production1. The research began as a project looking into using quick-growing algae to sequester carbon in CO2 emissions from coal power plants.

Noticing that some algae have very high oil content, the project shifted its focus to growing algae for another purpose - producing biodiesel. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some well over 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program2, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil) - but we first have to solve a few of the problems they encountered along the way.

NREL's research focused on the development of algae farms in desert regions, using shallow saltwater pools for growing the algae. Using saltwater eliminates the need for desalination, but could lead to problems as far as salt build-up in bonds. Building the ponds in deserts also leads to problems of high evaporation rates.

There are solutions to these problems, but for the purpose of this paper, we will focus instead on the potential such ponds can promise, ignoring for the moment the methods of addressing the solvable challenges remaining when the Aquatic Species Program at NREL ended.

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH).

In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles.

To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required).

That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

The algae farms would not all need to be built in the same location, of course (and should not for a variety of reasons). The case mentioned above of building it all in the Sonora desert is purely a hypothetical example to illustrate the amount of land required. It would be preferable to spread the algae production around the country, to lessen the cost and energy used in transporting the feedstocks.

Algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country. Nutrients can also be extracted from the algae for the production of a fertilizer high in nitrogen and phosphorous.

By using waste streams (agricultural, farm animal waste, and human sewage) as the nutrient source, these farms essentially also provide a means of recycling nutrients from fertilizer to food to waste and back to fertilizer. Extracting the nutrients from algae provides a far safer and cleaner method of doing this than spreading manure or wastewater treatment plant "bio-solids" on farmland.

These projected yields of course depend on a variety of factors, sunlight levels in particular. The yield in North Dakota, for example, wouldn't be as good as the yield in California. Spreading the algae production around the country would result in more land being required than the projected 9.5 million acres, but the benefits from distributed production would outweigh the larger land requirement. Further, these yield estimates are based on what is theoretically achievable - roughly 15,000 gallons per acre-year.

It's important to point out that the DOE's ASP that projected that such yields are possible, was never able to come close to achieving such yields. Their focus on open ponds was a primary factor in this, and the research groups that have picked up where the DOE left off are making substantial gains in the yields compared to the old DOE work - but we still have a ways to go. But, consider that even if we are only able to sustain an average yield of 5,000 gallons per acre-year in algae systems spread across the US, the amount of land required would still only be 28.5 million acres - a mere fraction still of the total farmland area in the US.

III. Cost

In "The Controlled Eutrophication process: Using Microalgae for CO2 Utilization and Agircultural Fertilizer Recycling"3, the authors estimated a cost per hectare of $40,000 for algal ponds. In their model, the algal ponds would be built around the Salton Sea (in the Sonora desert) feeding off of the agircultural waste streams that normally pollute the Salton Sea with over 10,000 tons of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers each year.

The estimate is based on fairly large ponds, 8 hectares in size each. To be conservative (since their estimate is fairly optimistic), we'll arbitrarily increase the cost per hectare by 100% as a margin of safety. That brings the cost per hectare to $80,000. Ponds equivalent to their design could be built around the country, using wastewater streams (human, animal, and agricultural) as feed sources. We found that at NREL's yield rates, 15,000 square miles (3.85 million hectares) of algae ponds would be needed to replace all petroleum transportation fuels with biodiesel. At the cost of $80,000 per hectare, that would work out to roughly $308 billion to build the farms.

The operating costs (including power consumption, labor, chemicals, and fixed capital costs (taxes, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, and return on investment) worked out to $12,000 per hectare. That would equate to $46.2 billion per year for all the algae farms, to yield all the oil feedstock necessary for the entire country. Compare that to the $100-150 billion the US spends each year just on purchasing crude oil from foreign countries, with all of that money leaving the US economy.

These costs are based on the design used by NREL - the simple open-top raceway pond. Various approaches being examined by the research groups focusing on algae biodiesel range from being the same general system, to far more complicated systems. As a result, this cost analysis is very much just a general approximation.

While the work on algae for fuel production done in the 1980s and 1990s focused almost entirely on the simple open pond approach, most groups now working in this field (including our collaboration) have shifted to focusing on the use of proprietary photobioreactors. The primary reason being that most of the problems encountered by prior work (takeover by low oil strains, vulnerability to temperature fluctuations, high evaporation losses, etc.) are primarily a result of using open ponds. Going with enclosed photobioreactors can immediately solve the bulk of the problems encountered by prior research.

The obvious drawback though is cost - any photobioreactor design is going to be have a higher capital cost than a simple, open pond. At this point, a key factor in making algal biodiesel a commercial reality is the development of photobioreactors that can offer high yields (optimization of light path, etc.), but be built inexpensively enough to offer a reasonable payback rate (otherwise no company would be interested in building them).

Improving processing technologies, and designing an integrated system to tie the algae production into other processes (i.e. wastestream treatment, power plant emissions reduction, etc.), can further improve the economics and payback rate. UNH and our collaborators are currently focusing on these issues, with the goal of making algal biodiesel a commercial reality.

IV. Other issues

To make biodiesel, you need not only the vegetable oil, but an alcohol as well (either ethanol or methanol). The alcohol only constitutes about 10% of the volume of the biodiesel. Among the most land-efficient and energy-efficient methods of producing alcohol is from hydrolysis and fermentation of plant cellulose. In the early days of the automobile, most vehicles ran on biofuels, with Henry Ford himself being a big advocate of alcohol produced from industrial hemp (not to be confused with marijuana). The Department of Energy's "Mustard Project" has focused on the prospect of growing mustard for the dual purposes of biodiesel and organic pesticide production. Their process focused on alternating mustard crops with wheat. One nice effect of this is that the biomass from the mustard (after harvesting the seed ) could be used as the cellulose feedstock for producing alcohol for biodiesel production.

V. Hydrogen?

Hydrogen as a fuel has received widespread attention in the media of late, particularly ever since the Bush administration proclaimed that developing a hydrogen economy would clean our air, and free us of oil dependence. There are many problems with using hydrogen as a fuel. The first, and most obvious, is that hydrogen gas is extremely explosive. To store hydrogen at high pressures for as a transportation fuel, it is essential to have tanks that are constructed of rust-proof materials, so that as they age they won't rust and spring leaks. Hydrogen has to be stored at very high pressures to try to make up for its low energy density. Diesel fuel has an energy density of 1,058 kBtu/cu.ft. Biodiesel has an energy density of 950 kBtu/cu.ft, and hydrogen stored at 3,626 psi (250 times atmospheric pressure) only has an energy density of 68 kBtu/cu.ft.4

So, highly pressurized to 250 atmospheres, hydrogen's volumetric energy density is only 7.2% of that of biodiesel. The result being that with similar efficiencies of converting that stored chemical energy into motion (as diesel engines and fuel cells have), a hydrogen vehicle would need a fuel tank roughly 14 times as large to yield the same driving range as a biodiesel powered vehicle. To get a 1,000 mile range, a tractor trailer running on diesel needs to store 168 gallons of diesel fuel. When biodiesel's slightly lower energy density and the greater efficiency of the engine running on biodiesel are taken into account, it would need roughly 175 gallons of biodiesel for the same range.

But, to run on hydrogen stored at 250 atmospheres, to get the same range would require 2,360 gallons of hydrogen. Dedicating that much space to fuel storage would drastically reduce how much cargo trucks could carry. Additionally, the cost of the high pressure, corrosion resistant storage tanks to carry that much fuel is astronomical.

There are two main options for producing hydrogen [etc.]

[snipped]

What is the energy efficiency for producing biodiesel? Based on a report by the US DOE and USDA entitled "Life Cycle Inventory of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel for Use in an Urban Bus"5, biodiesel produced from soy has an energy balance of 3.2:1. That means that for each unit of energy put into growing the soybeans and turning the soy oil into biodiesel, we get back 3.2 units of energy in the form of biodiesel. That works out to an energy efficiency of 320% (when only looking at fossil energy input - input from the sun, for example, is not included). The reason for the energy efficiency being greater than 100% is that the growing soybeans turn energy from the sun into chemical energy (oil).

Current generation diesel engines are 43% efficient (HCCI diesel engines under development, and heavy duty diesel engines have higher efficiencies approaching 55% (better than fuel cells), but for the moment we'll just use current car-sized diesel engine technology). That 3.2 energy balance is for biodiesel made from soybean oil - a rather inefficient crop for the purpose.

Other feedstocks such as algaes can yield substantially higher energy balances, as can using thermochemical processes for processing wastes into biofuels (such as the thermal depolymerization process pioneered by Changing World Technologies). Such approaches can yield EROI values ranging from 5-10, potentially even higher.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The above is a description of the potential algae has to offer. The current state of the technology is not yet capable of achieving yields as high as theoretically possible, and the economics need further improvement. The UNH Biodiesel Group and a few other groups across the country are working on improving the technology for growing algae and processing it into biodiesel. Due to the lack of government funding for this field of work, UNH and its collaborators are seeking private partners to finance the continued development of the technology. For more information contact:

Michael Briggs ;
email msbriggs@unh.edu

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/pdf/algae_salton_sea.pdf
http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2002/eberhardt.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf
http://www.autointell.net/nao_companies/daimlerchrysler/dodge/dodge-esx3-01.htm
http://www.allpar.com/model/intrepid-esx3.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/hydrogen/iea/pdfs/honda.pdf
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=27&article_id=4217&page_number=1
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=27&article_id=4217&page_number=2

 

[impressive]

Our school system uses it for the buses. Doesn't perform well in extremely low temperatures, often resulting in 2-hour delays while they get the engines warmed up.

 

[Pure]

a common proposal is to have a hybrid vehicle that starts up from battery sources.

there are proposals for making the biodiesel less viscous and with lower freezing and gelling points

http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2007/03/05/ag_news/production_news/prod08.txt

The article below discusses the feasibility of "B20", i.e 20% biodiesel

Understand effects of low temperatures on biodiesel

[North Dakota Group]
By John Nowatzki, NDSU Extension Service
Saturday, March 3, 2007 5:25 PM CST




Biodiesel users in cold climates need to understand the effects of low temperatures on biodiesel and biodiesel blends in diesel engines. Two characteristics, the cloud point and the cold filter plugging point (CFPP), commonly characterize the low temperature operability of diesel fuel and are equally important with biodiesel.

The cloud point is the temperature of the fuel at which small, solid crystals are visually observed as the fuel cools. CFPP is the temperature at which a fuel will cause a fuel filter to plug due to fuel components that have begun to crystallize or gel.

Commercially available biodiesel generally is a blend of petroleum diesel and biodiesel. Common blends are B2, B5, B10 and B20, with the numbers indicating the percentage of biodiesel in the blend. Studies funded by the National Biodiesel Board indicate that blends of B2 or B5 have minimal or no effect on cold-flow properties of the finished blend.

B20 that is not treated with anti-gelling additives freezes about 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit faster than No. 2 petroleum diesel, depending on the cold-flow properties of the biodiesel and the cold-flow properties of the petroleum diesel.



In cold-weather situations, biodiesel and No. 2 diesel can be mixed with No. 1 diesel to reduce the temperature at which gelling will occur. Biodiesels made from various crop oils have unique cold-weather characteristics that can vary up or down by as much as 5 degrees.

The cloud point of soybean biodiesel is about 30 degrees, while the cloud point for No. 1 diesel is about minus 35 degrees. Usually, when the fuel nears the cloud point temperature, changes will need to be made to the fuel, such as the addition of anti-gel additives or No. 1 diesel fuel. Otherwise, filters will clog and stop the engine.


Mixing No.1 diesel fuel with biodiesel will help reduce most fuel gelling problems. Other measures may include the addition of fuel-line heaters or in-tank fuel heaters, along with the use of anti-gel additives. Insulating the fuel filters and fuel lines from the cold also will help. These measures should eliminate most cold-weather operational problems associated with biodiesel.

The above recommendations assume that the fuels meet American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) specifications. ASTM is the recognized standard-setting body for fuels and additives in the U.S. ASTM has adopted a specification for biodiesel with the designation ASTM D 6751.

This specification covers pure biodiesel (B100) for blending with petroleum diesel at levels up to 20 percent by volume. The ASTM specification for petroleum diesel is ASTM D 975. Biodiesel that meets the American Society of Testing and Materials specifications is a safe and reliable fuel that can be used in most diesel engines. However, it is important to check with engine manufacturers about any impact of biodiesel use on engine warranties.

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here are a couple general refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/biodiesel.html

making it in your kitchen
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/makingasmallbatch/

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Willie Nelson swears by the stuff, and makes a few bucks off it as well. If it's good enough for Willie, it's good enough for me.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You can also go down to your local Mickey D's, BK, etc. and haul away their veggie oil and filter it and produce your own bio-diesel. Of course your car, truck whatever will now give off the smell of french fries but, what the hell it's on the people behind you that have to smell it.

 

[R. Richard]

I foresee several problems.

First, a diesel engine is by nature heavier than an gasoline engine. This is due to the very high compression ratios/pressures inside a diesel engine. Thus, the vehicle weight tends to be higher for a diesel powered vehicle. This reduces some of the fuel savings.

Second, the 'analysis' of what sort of cropland is required to grow the required biodiesel varies considerably from what I have read from other sources. However, ignoring that, the same crop cannot be grown over and over again on the same land without MASSIVE amount of fertiizer. Even then, there needs to be some crop rotation, if the land is not to wear out. The alternative crop costs money to raise and needs to be sold to recover the cost. In addition, using land like the Sonora desert if fine, IF YOU HAVE THE NECESSARY WATER! The Sonora desert does not have the necessary water [actually, that is why it is called the Sonora DESERT.]

Finally, many of the current parts used in vehicle fuel systems will not tolerate biodiesel. A lot of new technology would be needed.

 

[R. Richard]

You can also go down to your local Mickey D's, BK, etc. and haul away their veggie oil and filter it and produce your own bio-diesel. Of course your car, truck whatever will now give off the smell of french fries but, what the hell it's on the people behind you that have to smell it.

Not likely. There are currently people who make a living collecting and recycling used cooking oil. It is used, after processing, to make animal food.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Not likely. There are currently people who make a living collecting and recycling used cooking oil. It is used, after processing, to make animal food.

And bio-diesel. Not all fast food establishments are in an area where they will be solicited by the animal food marketers.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I foresee several problems.

First, a diesel engine is by nature heavier than an gasoline engine. This is due to the very high compression ratios/pressures inside a diesel engine. Thus, the vehicle weight tends to be higher for a diesel powered vehicle. This reduces some of the fuel savings.

Second, the 'analysis' of what sort of cropland is required to grow the required biodiesel varies considerably from what I have read from other sources. However, ignoring that, the same crop cannot be grown over and over again on the same land without MASSIVE amount of fertiizer. Even then, there needs to be some crop rotation, if the land is not to wear out. The alternative crop costs money to raise and needs to be sold to recover the cost. In addition, using land like the Sonora desert if fine, IF YOU HAVE THE NECESSARY WATER! The Sonora desert does not have the necessary water [actually, that is why it is called the Sonora DESERT.]

Finally, many of the current parts used in vehicle fuel systems will not tolerate biodiesel. A lot of new technology would be needed.

Todays modern diesel engines are not that much heavier than a gasoline engine, plus the diesel engine is much more efficient at extracting the energy from the fuel it uses. So weight vs fuel consumption is not much of an issue.

 

[oggbashan]

Biodiesel can be made from used chip shop oil in the UK. It is a fairly simple chemical process. The complication is that the product has to be taxed, so the processor has to keep accurate, auditable records of the production.

Used chip shop oil will only make a small difference to the use of petroleum products. Growing crops for biodiesel and biogasoline is feasible but as an alternative to other crops. Brazil uses more bio-produced fuel than any other country but couldn't change to wholly bio without major restructuring of its agriculture.

Bio-fuel has to be made cheaper to produce if it is to be a suitable alternative.

Og

 

[cantdog]

Biodiesel can be made from used chip shop oil in the UK. It is a fairly simple chemical process. The complication is that the product has to be taxed, so the processor has to keep accurate, auditable records of the production.

Used chip shop oil will only make a small difference to the use of petroleum products. Growing crops for biodiesel and biogasoline is feasible but as an alternative to other crops. Brazil uses more bio-produced fuel than any other country but couldn't change to wholly bio without major restructuring of its agriculture.

Bio-fuel has to be made cheaper to produce if it is to be a suitable alternative.

Og

You seem to have thought about it, ogg. The 'cheaper' thing may be a chimaera, though. Petroleum fuels can only become more expensive.

 

[SeaCat]

Okay a couple of comments from one who is not totally conversant with ll of the factors. I am not after all an engineer.

The land use argument can be brought to heel by using other methods of lighting and heating needed for the algea. These include but are not limited to geothermal heating and natural lighting delivered by etched glass fiber matting. This would bring down the price per acre used.

Another aspect of this, as has been already mentioned is the use of newer materials and concepts in the use of compression type engines which has lightened the weight of the power plant.

Is the idea o Algea Based Bio Fuel possible? Yes it is although the start up costs will be high. Will these costs be too high for the people to want to dal with? That remains to be seen.

Cat

 

[Pure]

A couple interesting articles, with some figures for net energy yield,

for ethanol and biodiesel

http://www.sarid.net/technology/051027-food-fuel-compete.htm

Food and fuel compete for land
People and planet.net

http://www.peopleandplanet.net

October 27, 2005
In a world of high-priced oil almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for cars. Wheat can be converted into bread or ethanol for service stations. Soybean oil can go onto supermarket shelves or it can be used as diesel fuel.

In effect, owners of the world's 800 million cars are competing for food resources with the 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day. Lester Brown reports.
Historically, the world's farmers produced food, feed, and fibre. Today they are starting to produce fuel as well. On any given day there are now two groups of buyers in world commodity markets: one representing food processors and another representing biofuel producers.

First triggered by the oil shocks of the 1970s, production of biofuels - principally ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil and corn in the United States - grew rapidly for some years but then stagnated during the 1990s. After 2000, as oil prices edged upward, it began to again gain momentum. Europe, meanwhile, led by Germany and France, was starting to extract biodiesel from oilseeds.

Production of biofuels in 2005 equalled nearly 2 per cent of world gasoline use. From 2000 to 2005, ethanol production worldwide nearly tripled, from 4.6 billion to 12.2 billion gallons. Biodiesel, starting from a small base of 251 million gallons in 2000, climbed to an estimated 790 million gallons in 2005.

Reducing carbon

Governments support biofuels production because of concerns about climate change and a possible shrinkage in the flow of imported oil. Since substituting biofuels for gasoline reduces carbon emissions, governments see this as a way to meet their carbon reduction goals. Biofuels also have a domestic economic appeal partly because locally produced fuel creates jobs and keeps money within the country.

Brazil, using sugarcane as the feedstock for ethanol, is producing some 4 billion gallons a year, satisfying 40 per cent of its automotive fuel needs. The United States, using corn as the feedstock, produced 3.4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2004, supplying just under 2 per cent of the fuel used by its vast automotive fleet.

Forecasts for 2005 show US ethanol output overtaking that of Brazil, at least temporarily. Europe ranks third in fuel ethanol output, the lion's share from France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Europe's distillers use mostly sugar beets, wheat, and barley.

Interest in biofuels has escalated sharply since oil prices reached $40 per barrel in mid-2004. Brazil, the world's largest sugarcane producer, is emerging as the world leader in farm fuel production. In 2004, half of its sugarcane crop was used for sugar and half for ethanol. Expanding the sugarcane area from 5.3 million hectares in 2005 to some 8 million hectares would enable it to become self-sufficient in automotive fuel within a matter of years while maintaining its sugar production and exports.

Huge investment

Even though Brazil has phased out ethanol subsidies, by mid-2005 the private sector had committed $5.1 billion to investment in sugar mills and distilleries over the next five years. Thinking beyond its currently modest exports of ethanol, Brazil is discussing ethanol supply contracts with Japan and China. Producing ethanol at 60¢ per gallon, Brazil is in a strong competitive position in a world with $60-a-barrel oil.

US ethanol production, almost entirely from corn, benefits from a government subsidy of 51¢ per gallon. Ethanol produced from $3-a-bushel corn in the United States costs roughly $1.40 per gallon, more than twice the cost of Brazil's cane-based ethanol.

Although it took roughly a decade to develop the first billion gallons of US distilling capacity and another decade for the second billion, the third billion was added in two years. The fourth billion is likely to be added in even less time. In addition to corporations, US farm groups are also investing heavily in ethanol distilleries.

India, the world's second largest producer of sugarcane, has 10 ethanol plants in operation and expects to have 20 additional plants up and running by the end of 2005. China is projected to bring on-line four plants producing up to 360 million gallons of additional fuel ethanol by the end of 2005, mostly from corn and wheat.

Colombia and the Central American countries represent the other biofuel hot spot. Colombia is off to a fast start, opening one new ethanol distillery each month from August 2005 until the end of the year.

Cooking oil

For biofuels used in diesel engines, Europe is the leader. Germany, producing 326 million gallons of biodiesel in 2004, is now covering 3 per cent of its diesel fuel needs. Relying almost entirely on rapeseed (the principal source of cooking oil in Europe), it plans to expand output by half within the next few years.

France, where biodiesel production totaled 150 million gallons in 2004, plans to double its output by 2007. Like Germany, it uses rapeseed as its feedstock. In both countries the impetus for biodiesel production comes from the European Union's goal of meeting 5.75 per cent of automotive fuel needs with biofuels by 2010. Biofuels in Europe are exempted from the hefty taxes levied on gasoline and diesel.

In the United States, a latecomer to biodiesel production, output is growing rapidly since the 2003 adoption of a $1-per-gallon subsidy that took effect in January 2005. Iowa, a leading soybean producer and an epicentre of soy-fuel enthusiasm, now has three biodiesel plants in operation, another under construction, and five more in the planning stages.

State officials estimate that biodiesel plants will be extracting oil from 200 million bushels of the state's 500-million-bushel annual harvest within a few years, producing 280 million gallons of biodiesel. The four fifths of the soybean left after the oil is extracted is a protein-rich livestock feed supplement, which is even more valuable than the oil itself.

Other countries either producing biodiesel or planning to do so include Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brazil. Malaysia and Indonesia, the major producers of palm oil, would likely use highly productive oil palm plantations as their feedstock source. Brazil, which has ambitious plans to ramp up biodiesel production, will also likely turn to palm oil.

High yield

There are two key indicators in evaluating crops for biofuel production: the fuel yield per acre and the net energy yield of the biofuels, after subtracting the energy used in both production and refining. For ethanol, the top yields per acre are 714 gallons from sugar beets in France and 662 gallons per acre for sugarcane in Brazil. U.S. corn comes in at 354 gallons per acre, or roughly half the beet and cane yields.

With biodiesel production, oil palm plantations are a strong first, with a yield of 508 gallons per acre. Next comes coconut oil, with 230 gallons per acre, and rapeseed, at 102 gallons per acre. Soybeans, grown primarily for their protein content, yield only 56 gallons per acre.)

For net energy yield, ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil is in a class all by itself, yielding over 8 units of energy for each unit invested in cane production and ethanol distillation. Once the sugary syrup is removed from the cane, the fibrous remainder, bagasse, is burned to provide the heat needed for distillation, eliminating the need for an additional external energy source. This helps explain why Brazil can produce cane-based ethanol for 60¢ per gallon.

Ethanol from sugar beets in France comes in at 1.9 energy units for each unit of invested energy. Among the three principal feedstocks now used for ethanol production, US corn-based ethanol, which relies largely on natural gas for distillation energy, comes in a distant third in net energy efficiency, yielding only 1.5 units of energy for each energy unit used.

Current and planned ethanol-producing operations use food crops such as sugarcane, sugar beets, corn, wheat, and barley. The United States, for
example, in 2004 used 32 million tons of corn to produce 3.4 billion gallons of ethanol. Although this is scarcely 12 per cent of the huge US corn crop, it is enough to feed 100 million people at average world grain consumption levels.



This article is excerpted, with permission, from Chapter 2, Beyond the Oil Peak, in Lester R. Brown’s forthcoming new book, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble to be published by W.W. Norton, New York, in January 2006.

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http://www.biodieseltechnologiesindia.com/biodieselsources.html


Source of Biodiesel

info@biodieseletchnologiesindia.com

A variety of biolipids can be used to produce biodiesel. These include:
· Virgin oil feedstock; rapeseed and soybean oils are most commonly used, though other crops such as mustard, palm oil, hemp and even algae show promise;

· waste vegetable oil (WVO);

· Animal fats including tallow, lard, and yellow grease.

· Non edible oils like Jatropha, Neem Oil, Castor Oil etc.
Many advocates suggest that waste vegetable oil is the best source of oil to produce biodiesel. However, the available supply is drastically less than the amount of petroleum-based fuel that is burned for transportation and home heating in the world. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), restaurants in the US produce about 300 million gallons of waste cooking oil annually.

[1] Although it is economically profitable to use WVO to produce biodiesel, it is even more profitable to convert WVO into other products such as soap. Hence, most WVO that is not dumped into landfills is used for these other purposes. Animal fats are similarly limited in supply, and it would not be efficient to raise animals simply for their fat. However, producing biodiesel with animal fat that would have otherwise been discarded could replace a small percentage of petroleum diesel usage.

For a truly renewable source of oil, crops or other similar cultivatable sources would have to be considered. Plants utilize photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy. It is this chemical energy that biodiesel stores and is released when it is burned. Therefore plants can offer a sustainable oil source for biodiesel production. Different plants produce usable oil at different rates. Some studies have shown the following annual production:
· Soybean: 40 to 50 US gal/acre (40 to 50 m³/km²)
· Rapeseed: 110 to 145 US gal/acre (100 to 140 m³/km²)
· Mustard: 140 US gal/acre (130 m³/km²)
· Jatropha: 175 US gal/acre (160 m³/km²)
· Palm oil: 650 US gal/acre (610 m³/km²) [2]
· Algae: 10,000 to 20,000 US gal/acre (10,000 to 20,000 m³/km²)

The production of algae to harvest oil for biodiesel has not been undertaken on a commercial scale, but working feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the above number. Specially bred mustard varieties can produce reasonably high oil yields, and have the added benefit that the meal leftover after the oil has been pressed out can act as a effective and biodegradable pesticide.

There is ongoing research into finding more suitable crops and improving oil yield. Using the current yields, vast amounts of land would have to be put into production to produce enough oil to completely replace fossil fuel usage.

Soybeans are not a very efficient crop solely for the production of biodiesel, but their common use in the United States for food products has led to soybean biodiesel becoming the primary source for biodiesel in that country. Soybean producers have lobbied to increase awareness of soybean biodiesel, expanding the market for their product.

In Europe, rapeseed is the most common base oil used in biodiesel production. In India and southeast Asia, the Jatropha tree is used as a significant fuel source, and it is also planted for watershed protection and other environmental restoration efforts.Efficiency and economic argumentsAccording to a study written by Drs. Van Dyne and Raymer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, the average US farm consumes fuel at the rate of 82 litres per hectare (8.75 US gallons per acre) of land to produce one crop.

However, average crops of rapeseed produce oil at an average rate of 1,029 L/ha (110 US gal/acre), and high-yield rapeseed fields produce about 1,356 L/ha (145 US gal/acre). The ratio of input to output in these cases is roughly 1:12.5 and 1:16.5. Photosynthesis is known to have an efficiency rate of about 16% and if the entire mass of a crop is utilized for energy production, the overall efficiency of this chain is known to be about 1%. This does not compare favorably to solar cells combined with an electric drive train. Biodiesel outcompetes solar cells in cost and ease of deployment. However, these statistics by themselves are not enough to show whether such a change makes economic sense.

Additional factors must be taken into account, such as: the fuel equivalent of the energy required for processing, the yield of fuel from raw oil, the return on cultivating food, and the relative cost of biodiesel versus petrodiesel. A 1998 joint study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) traced many of the various costs involved in the production of biodiesel and found that overall, it yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil fuel energy consumed. [3] That measure is referred to as the energy yield.

Some nations and regions that have pondered transitioning fully to biofuels have found that doing so would require immense tracts of land if traditional crops are used. Considering only traditional plants and analyzing the amount of biodiesel that can be produced per acre of cultivated land, some have concluded that it is likely that the United States, with one of the highest per capita energy demands of any country, does not have enough arable land to fuel all of the nation's vehicles.

Other developed and developing nations may be in better situations, although many regions cannot afford to divert land away from food production. For third world countries, biodiesel sources that use marginal land could make more sense, e.g. Jatropha Trees grown along roads & Railway tracts and other areas.The direct source of the energy content of biodiesel is solar energy captured by plants during photosynthesis.

When straw was left in the field, biodiesel production was strongly energy positive, yielding 1 GJ biodiesel for every 0.561 GJ of energy input (a yield/cost ratio of 1.78).

When straw was burned as fuel and oilseed rapemeal was used as a fertilizer, the yield/cost ratio for biodiesel production was even better (3.71). In other words, for every unit of energy input to produce biodiesel, the output was 3.71 units (the difference of 2.71 units would be from solar energy).

Biodiesel is becoming of interest to companies interested in commercial scale production as well as the more usual home brew biodiesel user and the user of straight vegetable oil or waste vegetable oil in diesel engines. Homemade biodiesel processors are many and varied.AvailabilityBiodiesel is commercially available in most oilseed-producing states in the United States.

As of 2005, it is somewhat more expensive than fossil diesel, though it is still commonly produced in relatively small quantities (in comparison to petroleum products and ethanol). Many farmers who raise oilseeds use a biodiesel blend in tractors and equipment as a matter of policy, to foster production of biodiesel and raise public awareness.

It is sometimes easier to find biodiesel in rural areas than in cities. Similarly, some agribusinesses and others with ties to oilseed farming use biodiesel for public relations reasons. As of 2003 some tax credits are available in the U.S. for using biodiesel. In 2004 almost 30 million gallons (110,000,000 l) of commercially produced biodiesel were sold in the U.S.Brazil opened a commercial biodiesel refinery in March 2005.

It is capable of producing 12 million liters (3.2 million gallons) per year of biodiesel fuel. Feedstocks can be a variety of sunflower seeds, soybeans, or castor beans. The finished product will be currently a blend of gas oil with 2% biodiesel and, after 2011, 5% biodiesel, both usable in unmodified diesel engines.

 

[colddiesel]

Everything old is new again

Finally, many of the current parts used in vehicle fuel systems will not tolerate biodiesel. A lot of new technology would be needed.[/QUOTE]

In fact it's more likely to be old technology. It is easy to convert a 30 year old Toyota Landcruiser to run on almost any sort of biodiesel or fat . The new models with turbos and modern fuel injection are much more difficult. I use waste from a margarine manufacturing plant as the basis for my fuel & blend it with other stuff.

Alternative fuels work particularly well in slow speed stationary engines. Probably the finest example is the RA Lister CS model which was built continuously from 1929 to 1987 by the parent company. It is still built in large numbers in India and Iran its main use being to run small generators. These copies are called listeroids (Google it if you want to know more) This 78 year old technology achieves fuel efficiencies of up to 52/55 5 because a very complete burn of the fuel is possible at low rpm. typically between 600 and 850 RPM depending on the model.
I use a two cylinder 12 hp model to provide power for a small group of holiday chalets in Tasmania ( Australia)

 

[Pure]

cold d,

that's a fine posting! as you probably know, Henry Ford considered biodiesel for the early automobile engine, i believe from mustard plants, before he was 'converted' to refined petroleum derivatives.

how is the margarine production waste treated? is it transesterified? (treated with methyl alcohol, etc.).

 

[Pure]

bump.

 

[oggbashan]

Trying to source biodiesel could turn an ordinary story into an Earth Day Contest entry...

Og

 

[Pure]

i wonder if biodiesel is friendly to skin? perhaps it has apps?