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Date:         Tue, 17 May 2005 11:55:11 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject:      Re: Question on Biodiesel
In-Reply-To:  <86476e25050517092510128493@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Loren,

The problem here is that there are all kinds of BD around.

Someone else is going to have to explain why the oil distributor needs to price it a dollar higher. Presumably that's because it's made and transported in small batches for those who with a financial (like a tax credit) or a personal (like not wanting blood in their oil) incentive.

I think most corporate oil is leaning toward using soy or other oil for a fuel source. It's predictable, clean, and can be had from a handful of more or less centralized suppliers. You add alcohol and lye, and you get soap and diesel fuel. Same formula every time.

Using waste vegetable oil (WVO), on the other hand, requires collecting and transporting from lots of nasty restaurant back doors. Then it has to be tested to figure out how much lye and alcohol has to be added, and it has to be cleaned up.

Individuals who want to switch to vegetable oils have more choices than to buy it at the pump. Some add vegetable oil to their diesel fuel in a blend. Others add a second tank that's usually heated (WVO can be too thick to pump otherwise) that they switch over to after the car starts on the "petro" diesel tank and switch back over to petrodiesel a minute or so before they shut the car down.

The advantage to the WVO approach described in the latter two scenarios is that the stuff is FREE. It has to be filtered, cleaned and dealt with, but it doesn't cost anything. In fact, it is using up something that the restaurant has to pay to have hauled away, and is a threat to rivers and streams if not incinerated, which I think it usually is, where it goes into the atmosphere just like diesel soot.

Jim On May 17, 2005, at 11:25 AM, Loren Busch wrote:

> A question for the diesel and bio diesel experts out there. The first > biodiesel filling station just opened in Seattle, pumping biodiesel > from the sole plant in the area. Price: $1.00 a gallon HIGHER than > gas or regular diesel. What gives? Where is the advantage? And I > though that the biodiesel advocates were all pushing the > McDonalds/Burgerking biodiesel? > BTW, not trying to start an argument here, just trying to understand > what is going on here. I'm already aware of the figures on total BTU > costs of production, etc. >


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