Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:00:10 -0700
Reply-To: River Clan <ri@RIVERCLAN.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: River Clan <ri@RIVERCLAN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Gas price war / costs of road trips
In-Reply-To: <01f301c664e5$a21c7460$647ba8c0@MAIN>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
I have gotten a kick working with biodiesel over the years, and the
wide belief that making your own is cheap, easy, or even really
possible on a long term basis.
Biodiesel is created with methanol and lye, and without energy
intensive processes of reclamation, all that nasty ends up in your
glycerine. Then, your glycerine ends up in a barrel. What to do with
it? People everywhere are trying to come up with ways to burn it,
compost it, etc. There isn't a good solution yet at an individual level.
I know a bio producer in my hometown that must have 45 barrels
sitting around their garage with their bad batches, glycerines, lye,
etc. If this is environmental, please explain it to me.
Being a biodiesel advocate for 3 years now, driving over 80k miles on
biodiesel... we found the real solution is having a large batch plant
in your community that can handle the additional energy use of
reclamation, washing and astm certification.
Personally, I question who is going to ship the vegetable oil to the
restaurant, and where the methanol will come from if we are without
petroleum.
We did a 32 mile bike ride today, just to get ready. ; )
Cheers,
Ri
http://www.greaseworks.org
http://www.riverclan.org
http://www.sqbiofuels.com
On Apr 20, 2006, at 6:48 PM, Robert Fisher wrote:
> The adaptations required to rid ourselves of our oil habit, at
> least as
> individuals under current circumstances don't have much to do with the
> matter at hand unless you just decide to forgo the trip entirely.
> I'm not
> aware of any practical way to take the family camping on a bicycle.
> I can't even really take my daughter to school on a bicycle and
> that commute
> alone is costing us about $220 a month. Nobody out here to carpool
> with
> either. Needless to say everything else we do in town revolves
> around the
> trips to the school.
>
> I've been thinking every day about resurrecting that old Rabbit
> diesel... or
> if it might be cheaper to find a runner instead, perhaps use mine
> for parts
> or combine them. I don't know what driving that stick would do to
> my knees
> (I had to fold up pretty tight to drive that thing, even in the
> day) and I'd
> have to teach my wife to drive a stick (which she should learn
> anyway), but
> it would worth it at this point 'cause it would give us a ton of
> relief in
> fuel costs. Most of our mileage at this point results from trips
> that only
> involve one or members of the family at a time, so the Rabbit would
> be fine
> for that- after all, it is mostly flat around here. : )
>
> Along with that, most of my customers are restaurants and
> supermarkets. I
> can get all the veggie oil I can stand- I've already talked to some
> of them
> about it. Taking that line further, part of my equipment runs on
> diesel. If
> I were able to obtain a diesel truck and convert my rig engine over
> to a
> diesel (both things that I'd like to do anyway), I could be
> independent of
> the oil-fuel process in the two main areas of my personal comsumption.
>
> All it takes is money, right? Contrasted with the savings over the
> years,
> assuming my supply held out from future competition for it, even a
> heavy
> startup cost would be fairly quickly offset, but- you have to the
> cash in
> the first place and one of the ironys there is that these gas
> prices have
> tightened up an already lackluster local economy and have eaten
> into my
> profits. What I'm doing now is looking at any and all second-hand
> equipment
> around here that I might be able use and trying to make some kind
> of a deal-
> sometimes I barter my services (no, I don't do kneecaps) or hire
> out for
> things other than my normal business.
>
> Who knows? If I can pull this off maybe I can save enough money for
> a TDI
> conversion someday... then I could be off the teat entirely.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
>
|