Fill me in on why we aren't burning used veg. oil for transport.

[Fuel]

Why don't we all have converted deisels burning used vegetable oil. Me being a small business owner, it would be nice if the government would quit giving Toyota Pious (Prius) owners checks and cut one out to me for saving WAY more gas by operating my business in this manner.

I understand that the oil must be kept warm in its tank for ignition, but this doesn't really seem like too big of a problem if a couple batteries are kept on board and constantly trickle charged.

Stores will PAY YOU, from what I have heard, .70 per gallon to haul away their grease. Come on, the farther we drive, the richer we become? So, what's the big monkey wrench in this stellar idea???

[Finagle]

Just how many deep fryers do you think there are in the US? Right now, it's an available resource because no one is using it. Once it becomes a popular fuel, it will become just as scarce and expensive as any other fuel for motor vehicles. Not too mention that the stuff needs to be filtered and probably will go rancid if stored too long.

[lorinada]

But the earth can make corn a lot faster than it can make oil.

I wonder if being rancid would affect its use as a fuel?

[Chronos]

We can't fuel all of the cars in the country this way, nor even a large fraction of them. We can, however, fuel some of them, more than are being fueled this way now. So why aren't we? Because it just hasn't caught on yet. Soon enough, it will. At any given stage in technological development, there are always some good ideas that aren't yet used to their full potential. Right now, fry-oil cars are one of them.

This ceases to be economical, by the way, once you start growing oil specifically for fuel purposes, rather than re-using oil already grown for food purposes. To produce that oil, you need to fuel a tractor to plow, plant, and harvest the fields, you need energy to process the veggies into oil, and you need fuel for the trucks to take it to the fueling stations. All of that adds up to close to or more than the energy you get out of the oil. So unless you can get some other use out of the oil first, it's not worth it.

[jsmith]

But the earth can make corn a lot faster than it can make oil.



Now you got me thinking.... Is it possible to grow enough corn to supply our needs for fuel?

A quick google search reveals that the United States alone uses over 100 billion gallons of gasoline a years. Some sites have it as high as 150 billion, but I will round down. Also, another consideration is that ethanol is less efficient so you need 1.5 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of gas. I won't factor that in either for sake of simplicity.

Again, using google I find that an acre can produce 7500 pounds of corn. It also takes 26 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol (doesn't factor in cost of harvesting, distilling, etc.)

So, if I take 26 and multiply that 100 billion that is 2.6 trillion pounds. Divide that by 7500 at that is something like 346 million acres of corn that we need to grown annually.

According to the census bureau 900 million acres (41%) of the United States are devoted to farmland. Of that 435 million acres of that are dedicated to cropland. Of course we also don't have to grow all that corn in the U.S.

So, I guess it is.

[smiling bandit]

So, I guess it is.

Ummm... you do realize that your estimates in and of themselves suggest we would need to convert vast cropland to grow corn for fuel, thus denying ourselves much of the food we now grow? Not that som poeple eating les would be bad mind you, but food prices would skyrocket. I'm thin as it is - I'll starve if food suddenyl becomes 2-3 times as expensive!

[gazpacho]

I am of the opinion that growing corn is a pretty inefficient way of turning sunlight into useful energy.

[Cheesesteak]

I dunno gazpacho, it seems that growing a plant would be a simple way to get oil. If, that is, you can get the oil easily, without too many steps. Alcohol, OTOH, always involves fermentation and distillation stages. Oil is produced in its final chemical form directly by the plant, no additional processing needed.

If you had a Genetically Modified plant that produced large quantities of oil per acre, maybe it could be economically feasable. The plant doesn't need to produce food quality anything, so that can all be sacrificed for oil efficiency.

[jsmith]

Ummm... you do realize that your estimates in and of themselves suggest we would need to convert vast cropland to grow corn for fuel, thus denying ourselves much of the food we now grow?

Sure, I didn't say it was good, bad, or what the consquences are. I was just investigating if it were possible to grow enough corn to fuel our cars.

[Fuel]

Man, isn't the key the government credits? THat could be the jumpstart to demand for the Biodeisel, then that demand will undoubtdely be supplied and before we know it, we are all up in it. Fleets are already using it, let's just all agree to make this slowly happen, right? So, what is the hold up? Maybe it is already slowly happening?

Come on, Although you can search for it, your supposed to grow your fuel, not search for it, right? Especially when you live in a place that doesn't have much storages of petrol. We grow our food, we ought to be growing much of our fuel, its that simple. And we ought to be keeping our spending inside our borders as much as reasonably possible. We should have been doing this all along, let's just bite the bullet and do it, right?

[gazpacho]

Cheesesteak

A gallon of gas contains 116000 BTUs not really relevant to this but it is here for comparison.

A gallon of ethanol contains 84,000 BTUs.

Solar radiation is about 164 Watts per square meter.

7500 lbs of corn per acre 26 pounds of corn per gallon of ethanol.

One acre produces 7500/26*84000= 24.26 Million BTUs of ethanol in a year.

Assuming 6 hours a day of good sun a square meter gets 1.29 billion joules or 1.22 million BTUs a year. There are 4046 square meters in a acre that is 4.95 billion BTUS. So only about 1/2 of 1% of the sunlight is converted to ethanol. And we left out of this calculation the amount of energy put into farming the corn.

In comparison a photo voltaic cell converts about 10% to 20% of the sunlight energy to electricity. That is why I think that corn is not a good way of converting sunlight to energy.

[wasson]

But solar powered cars are way off in the future. On the other hand, we could feasibly do Biodiesel solutions now.

There's only one station within driving distance of me that supplies biodiesel, and it's only 2% there. Why aren't there 20% stations? Semis could use it, as could many Volkswagens, some Volvos, some older Mercedes, a lot of pickup trucks, etc. etc. etc.

Of course making 100% vegetable oil available at fueling stations isn't exactly efficient, but why can't we start mixing it to make things a bit cheaper for us and cut back on our dependence of foreign fuels?

And why isn't anyone making a biodiesel hybrid? Imagine being able to go 60-70 miles on a gallon of recycled fryer grease! Going 70 miles even on 20% biodiesel would save a ton if we could get a percentage of the population converted to those instead of their 15 miles per gallon SUVs.

[Quercus]

gazpacho -- good rough analysis, but you also have to account for the cost of a solar panel vs the cost of a kernel of corn (plus maintaining the solar panel, and watering/weeding/harvesting/processing the corn.)

Not that I'm going to get off my butt and do that analysis, or anything. Just saying.

[Billdo]

One of our members, hlanelee, has done this very thing (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=330228.)

[Cheesesteak]

Corn is definitely not the answer, 0.5% isn't going to cut it. Great look at the situation, thanks for putting that together

However, note that corn is optimized as a food product, not a fuel producer. Ethanol uses only the endosperm from the kernel, and throws away the entire rest of the plant. It also requires a great amount of processing, first to sugar, then fermentation, then distillation, that has to be inefficient.

You get the right plant, and select the most beneficial genetic traits, maybe you can blow 0.5% out of the water. If you could get 5% that would blow away photocells, since you can plant an acre of crops for WAY less than you can build 1/4 acre of photocells.

Plant oils, as nature creates them, are perfectly viable fuel sources. No processing like alcohol, and it's completely renewable. Conceptually, it's a great idea, the tough part is figuring out how to get enough out of an acre to make it viable. Maybe it isn't corn, or any other recognizable food crop, maybe it's some sort of algae, who knows?

[Enola Straight]

On a recent edition of Trucks!...a performance auto show on Spike TV's Powerblock the host explained how one can make one's own bio...for around $.70 a gallon!

To expand on an earlier point, bio can be mixed with regular dino-diesel; because of its inherent lubricity, bio can replace the sulfur normally found in diesel fuel, thus eliminating a source of acid rain.

[msmith537]

Biofuels are not an efficient form of fuel. They rely on fossil fuels to create the products that turn into biofuels so you are better off just using the fuel directly to power your vehicles.

We don't use deep fryers because it's too expensive to set up a collection system to retreive all that burger grease and filter it into a usable form.

[Enola Straight]

We don't use deep fryers because it's too expensive to set up a collection system to retreive all that burger grease and filter it into a usable form.


An enterprising individual acting locally can.

Just buy a closed-up gas station and convert one service bay to set up the bio-brewer.

Enter into agreements with restaurants and other food preparers within a 5-10 mile radius of your gas station to take their grease on a regular basis...a pick-up truck and a couple of barrels will suffice. Since there is a fair chance there's water sloshing around the bottom of the barrels, siphon the fresh oil off the top and filter it simply by draining it through a large institutional-size coffee filter (captures particles down to 40 microns, btw). Add the appropriate amount of lye and methanol, adgitate for an hour, let sit for an hour, drain the glycerine from the bottom of the brewer (glycerine itself can be used for soap, cosmetics, medicines, etc) and what's left is the final product...biodiesel.

Pump it into the storage tanks and charge a rate that undercuts name-brand dino, plus charge fuel tax to keep the government happy :rolleyes: .

[msmith537]

An enterprising individual acting locally can.

Just buy a closed-up gas station and convert one service bay to set up the bio-brewer.



Just..just...everything is just so easy :rolleyes:


Right now the transportation system runs on GASOLINE (and to a much lesser extend DIESEL). All the cars run on gas. All the stations sell gas. There's a complex transportation network that is designed to transport gas around the country so that anywhere in the USA you need to refuel, there's a station with compatible fuel.

So what's the one idiot who buys a biodiesel car do when he's not near a McDonalds or your one service station in the whole country that sells his fuel?

No one in their right mind will buy a car that runs on a fuel that can't be optained at any service station in the country. And no service station will sell a fuel other than what they are already selling until they have a pretty good idea that there are enough people to buy it.

[Kevbo]

Biofuels are not an efficient form of fuel. They rely on fossil fuels to create the products that turn into biofuels so you are better off just using the fuel directly to power your vehicles.



This is statement is far from established fact, and is widely debated. Fairly reliable analysis indicates that current rape-seed (canola) oil based bio diesel production yields a net gain. That is to say the end product is X% more fuel than was used to grow, transport, and process the it. Determining the value of "X" requires a number of assumptions, and those assumptions tend to be influanced by the interests of the people making them.

Note however, that fossil fuel also requires energy for transport and refining, and that fact is typically ommited from comparisons.

If "X" were even 1% then it would mean that it is possible for biodiesel production to be self sustaining....it would be expensive, but you could do it. Even detracters tend to admit that "X" is currently at least 30%, and proponents tend to place it at around 70% .

It's thought that the "fuel multiplier" could be brought up to perhaps 3 (X=200%) with some optomization....process the fuel near where it is grown to reduce transportation costs for example. At that point biodiesel could probably compete with fossil based production.

This is based on rape-seed oil. Rape is a conventional crop that has high oil yield, and is suitable for currently developed agriculture infrastructure and methodes.

Far higher yields and effiency is possible with algea based agraculture, permitting perhaps a multiplier of 7 but this would require significantly different "farms" than currently exist.

I note insome posts above that Ethanol popped up. Ethanol production is far less effiecient than biodiesel. Confusing the two clouds the issue considerably.

[Kevbo]

No one in their right mind will buy a car that runs on a fuel that can't be optained at any service station in the country. .

non issue.

A car designed to run on bio diesel, or even straight vegitable oil (SVO)will run just fine on fossil derived diesel fuel. There is no problem finding stations that sell such. Not every station in urban areas does, but enough do. As you move to more rural areas, the percentage of stations selling it actually increases. If a small town has only one station, it is VERY likely that it will have a diesel pump.

The point of bio diesel is EXACTLY that cars, trucks, etc already exist that ARE designed to use it. Right minded people already bought them. Biodiesel "conversion" consists of unscrewing the gas cap and pouring biodiesel into the tank.

Burning straight vegitable oil, DOES require some modifications, but these modifications do not in any way prevent use of "regular" diesel....in fact a small supply of "regular" (or bio) diesel is normally used to start and warm up SVO powered vehicles.

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to burn vegetable oils in mass amounts to power a electrical plant and then use the electricity to power electric cars?

Someone brought up the lack of a bio-diesel infastructure. It's true--it wouldn't be cost-effective to build this infrastructure from the ground up. But we already have a exstensive electrical transmission infastructure.

biomass-fired electric plant could burn other forms of bio-waste too.

Power plants don't have to start and stop all the time like cars do so they use fuel (and this goes for fossile fuels too) more efficiently than car engines. IOW, one BIG engine that runs 24/7 is far more efficient than 1000 little engines that start and stop all the time.

The solution, IMO, is using many different sources (fry-oil, garbage, wind, sun, nuclear, coal, natural gas, oil) to generate electricity and then use the existing and extensive electrical transmission grid to move this power cheaply to places almost anywhere in the USA (certainly electicity is available in many more places than fry oil, or for that matter, gasoline, is available).

[Kevbo]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to burn vegetable oils in mass amounts to power a electrical plant and then use the electricity to power electric cars?

A big power station IS more efficient than a small automotive engine. The whole picture would include transmission losses, and battery effiency losses.

The veg oil is more expensive than coal, and much more expensive than Plutonium and hydroelectric. These are the current fuels of choice for inexpensive electrical power generation.

So in addition to the factors that make electric cars impractical (as demonstrated by failed attempts to market such) now, you'd have to add higher electricity prices. Those factors are:

-Batteries. Current Batteries are: (pick at least three, depending on technology)
-Heavy
-Full of toxic elements and chemicals
-Short lived.
-expensive.
-inefficient.
-low capacity.

-Short range (result of battery issues above, but a problem in it's own right)

-Long "fueling" time. Once batteries are depleted, they need several hours to charge.

-Lack of infrastructure to support "charge while you park" concepts.

-Significant power required for heat and AC. Heat is "free" with an IC engine, and it needs to idle when stopped anyway, so running the AC isn't a problem. AC in in electric means you have to keep the engine spinning at stop lights, which kills your range.


These are the killer issues for electric cars. YES, I have ignored all the good points of electrics. Those advantages have not surmounted the list above in the marketplace.

[Mangetout]

It would seem that the agencies best placed to exploit waste cooking oil as fuel would be those industries producing said waste - manufacturers of packaged fried snacks could use it to fuel their distribution; Even fast food chains could do this.

[DrDeth]

Sure- and certainly a few dudes could (and a very few already do) use waste cooking oil. But there ain't enough to put a significant dent in how much fossil fuels we use. Of course, a few more dudes could certainly convert and every little bit helps. I I owned a eatery that used a lot of oil, I'd consider getting a used deisel van and converting it to use the oil.

[Enola Straight]

Google terms such as Pyrolosis, a waste to fuel method utilizing pressure, heat, and a catalyst to create useable fuel from such abundant wastes as used motor oil, used automatic transmission fluid, used tires, plastic, even chicken guts.

[yerba buena]

I heard that biodiesel exhaust has a distinctive odor.

That odor might be problematic if biodiesel were very popular.

[Enola Straight]

Yes, the odor of french fries, chinese take-out, donuts, etc.