Cheap biodiesel

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Robin
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Cheap biodiesel

Post by Robin »

Biodiesel Production Gets Simplified With New Method
{{Michael Haas, a biochemist with the ARS Eastern Regional Research Center's Fats, Oils and Animal Coproducts Research Unit in Wyndmoor, Pa., has developed a new approach to synthesizing biodiesel.
Soybean oil is the prevalent starting material in the United States for biodiesel, and its relatively high cost results in a high cost for this renewable fuel.
The method developed by Haas and his colleagues eliminates the use of hexane, an air pollutant regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, from the production of soy oil for biodiesel synthesis. Hexane, a colorless, flammable liquid derived from petroleum, is traditionally used to extract vegetable oil triglycerides from the raw agricultural material before biodiesel production.
The new method eliminates the conventional oil extraction step. Instead, the oilseed is incubated with methanol and sodium hydroxide, which are currently used to process extracted oil.
The researchers found that the moisture naturally present in soybeans--as much as 10 percent in soy flakes--requires that a large amount of methanol be used in this reaction. However, using dried flakes greatly reduced the methanol requirement. Processing costs using dry flakes were estimated at $1.02 per gallon, which is $2.12 less than for biodiesel made from full-moisture soy flakes.
The researchers are refining their economic model to account for income from the sale of the lipid-free, protein-rich flakes left over from the biodiesel reaction for use as animal feeds, and to account for differences in the cost of the refined oil and flaked soybean feedstocks.
ARS has filed a patent application on the process, which might be useful in producing biodiesel from lipids remaining in the corn meal byproduct of corn-to-ethanol plants.}}
So how long before the petrochemical industries stop this one and or governments tax it to death? [:(!]
Production at a £1 a gallon? I wonder.......
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fastandfurryous
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Post by fastandfurryous »

The standard in the UK has always been to use methanol to produce biodiesel. The main problem in the UK, (as you've already hit quite squarely) is that Biodiesel still attracts a horrible level of taxation.
There is also the problem that about a year ago, the UK enviroment agency has defined used vegetable oils as a waste product, and hence in order to handle it, you have to be a licenced waste handler (costs a fortune for the licence). Not only that, but they have also defined the point of complete reclamation as the point at which it is burned. This means that anyone with Bio-diesel made from used vegetable oil in their fuel tank also has to be a licened waste handler.
What a complete farce UK legislation is. I can go down to Tesco's and buy gallons and gallons of vegetable oil. What on earth difference is there if I've cooked some scampi and chips in it?
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Post by Oscar Too »

Typical example of legislative capture by the vested interests. There is NO WAY the oil companies are going to allow diesel and petrol to be replaced by bio-products unless they are dragged kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, small, focussed, well-funded interest groups are always going to win out over the interests of large uncoordinated consumer groups. Especially when they are able to offer compliant politicians well-paid "consultancy" jobs outside their parliamentary activities. Unless people are prepared to put serious time and energy into getting this onto the political agenda, then the oil companies will win out again and again.
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Post by jeremy »

Didn't all these new disposal regulations affecting scrapyards etc come from Europe?
Come to think of it our own people have taken 15 years to think of something that may beat cowboy clampers.
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Robin
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Post by Robin »

I have spent this last week at seminars generally getting myself up to date on matters green relating to energy and fuel usage. Gas is running out, oil extraction is at it's technically economic limit and if we don't find replacements soon we will be forced into the nuclear option again. Spent 2 1/2 hours driving just 66 miles this morning to Milton Keynes. Where have we gone wrong?
An experiment in the USA using compressed natural gas enabled a car owner to drive home, plug the car into a socket and refuel it overnight being charged via the usual gas meter. We adopt LPG. Controlled by the petro chemical giants.
In the middle of all of this is space heating which uses diesel and this countries refusal to adopt alternative technologies. Today I have spent getting the latest info on Ground Source Heat Pumps for space heating. Over the last decade we have installed some 1.3 million pumps and systems world wide - in the UK - less than 500.
For evey KW of power put in GSHP give you 4 back in heating capacity. It is also possible to use the systems for space cooling but do we grant aid it's use in this way? No. Heating yes but not combined heat cooling. Sweden has a GSHP in over 60% of it's homes. In the average home using modern Photo Voltaic it's possible to drive the GSHP from solar using a battery to carry the unit over the hours of darkness. Possible therefore to gain 'free' heating.
Will this country and the various Govts ever wake up to the commercial promotion of green energy?
We are supposed to be aiming for the better options of the Kyoto agreements but any individual approach will be penalised, squashed or imprisoned!
I am leading a £5 million project for a new building and at every turn we are told not to bother about the green thing, it's too expensive!! Well sorry but tough, we are not giving in - just yet at least. Rant over.
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Post by fastandfurryous »

It still utterly astounds me that electrical storage heating is even legal. Storage heaters have to be just about the worst and most inefficient method of space heating that was ever invented. Overall efficiency about 20%-25% Utter rubbish.
Things will only change when we actually do run out of fossil fuels. At that point most of scandinavia, and a select area of wales will be looking very smug indeed, and I don't blame them!
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Post by Forth »

Rather suspicious of how "seminars" nowadays claim to be proof of whatever their promoters happened to want to "prove".
While agreeing with comments on biofuel (and in the passing, why, one has to wonder, are the greenies so determined not to admit to the existence of the SWERF process?) and geothermal, I would like to know just who is getting what back-handers in order to promote and impose the proliferation of hopelessly inefficient, massively subsidised and environmentally devastating wind-farms and giant wind-turbines all over the countryside. If they're that good why don't they stick one on top of Big Ben.
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Post by Robin »

Forth, I have found in general that like all stats you can use them to prove most things. I am not opposed to the engineering and potential of wind farms or the use of photo voltaics but unless someone starts to use them and create a demand we will never get them improved. Surely they are better than our coal burning power stations? I know they cannot generate Giga Watts but anything is better then using the last of the economically recoverable gas and oil. British Gas are seeking alternative sources in a hurry. The Morcambe Bay field is nearing it's economical end and the North Sea is close behind. If you want to hire a drilling rig for serious exploration, forget it. They are all in full use and booked for the next decade!
If the sea was a more kindly creature in terms of electricity then there is a promising opportunity in wave power. It is the cost of maintaining the kit that rules that one out.
Now for an original thought, has anyone considered nuclear.................
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Post by Kowalski »

Biodiesel is the way forward!
How about a plan to irrigate the deserts to grow biofuels, it would give third world countries the chance to grow their way out of poverty.
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Post by howiedean »

Hi,
What I find funny is how slow the developments have been on the internal combustion engine. Powered flight came after the engine and 30+ years ago man stepped on the moon!!! Ever get the feeling that the oil companies have bought up any good alternative to the internal combustion engine[:0]
Oh and till we find alternatives lets crack on and build more nuclear power stations[:o)]
I'm using my ZX TD on 100% V100 Biofuel[:D] I've got to try and sort out the poor cold running but I'm going to stick with it for now.
Watch the flaming
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Post by Forth »

I'm for nuclear; it seems to have been poor management or corner cutting rather than the technology as such that got it a rather negative image (not, mind you, that I've any confidence that this government or present-day private or pfi companies would improve on the past).
Wind farms require a considerable infrastructural network of cabling and maintenance roads, as well as there being scenic and health concerns (flicker, noise, distraction etc.). There are also the longer term effects on landscape and drainage of there having to be many tens of thousands of huge concrete-filled bases underground to stabilise these turbine towers -- a seriously different reality to the minimal or limited duration environmental damage that's misleadingly claimed by vested-interest advocates of that industry. The damage done by windfarms would last for thousands of years.
Biofuel from refuse reprocessing is just one of the benefits of the SWERFing process; but where other biofuel production is concerned there is a danger that the Monsanto-type "GM" companies might hijack its desirability as a bogus justification for getting their government cronies to permit or impose gm crops....
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