One Diesel At A Time
Did I say “Diesel Is Good“? The positive reports just keep rolling in.
About a year ago, Paul McNees chose to change his life by changing his fuel.
He sold his Saturn sport utility vehicle and bought a diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz. A mechanic whipped it into running order and replaced the soft rubber fuel lines with something sturdier.
“This has been great. It’s totally cleaned out the engine. It runs great, has a lot more power. It sort of smells like french fries - it doesn’t have that noxious diesel smell.”
Nationally, biodiesel consumption is up sharply - from 500,000 gallons in 1999 to more than 75 million gallons in 2005.
This is where I always have a problem - numbers. Those “gallons of biodiesel” don’t have to be pure bio. Any percentage of “bio” in the mix generally eans it the label “bio” (gas or diesel). I wish I knew the actual gallons of the bio part.
Much of biodiesel’s appeal stems from the fuel’s ability to perform as well as petroleum diesel while emitting fewer exhaust materials that cause smog, particulate pollution and global warming. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pure biodiesel emits 67 percent fewer unburned hydrocarbons, 48 percent less carbon monoxide and 47 percent fewer particulates but 10 percent more nitrogen oxides.
Here they quote stats for “pure biodiesel”. What was the actual pollution reduction in the “75 million gallons”?
So, can you just buy an old diesel car and start running bio? Don’t be absurd.
Yet its use in the West, until recently, was largely limited to hobbyists who brewed the fuel at home and people who prided themselves on not using oil.
The home brewers include people like Ben Jordan, who makes his own biodiesel and teaches an alternative-fuels class at City College of San Francisco, in which students create a batch of biodiesel.
“It’s very dangerous and potentially very problematic,” he said. “You’re dealing with methanol and lye, and when you mix it together, it is very explosive and toxic. It’s not something to mess around with. However, if you know what you’re doing, you can safely and easily make it in your own home.”
Live by example has always been an excellent tenet (getting the Christians to do it would be nice).
Home brewers deserve much of the credit for the percolating interest in biodiesel, said Anna Halpern-Lande of Tellurion Biodiesel, a San Francisco marketing and distribution firm.
“The hobbyists make up a very small portion of the market,” she said, “but they play a critical role: They capture the public’s attention.”
“It was kind of hippie-ish,” Golden said. “Now you see a lot more people with nicer cars and more money coming for the practicality and not just the ideology.”
You go, you logical thinkin’ non ideologues. However, there is trouble in bio land. We know about land and crops, but now some whiz kids have come up with more uses for the waste vegetable oil from restaurants.
Researchers from Dowling College in Oakdale, N.Y., say it is possible to transform waste cooking oil into inexpensive raw material for producing unusual biosurfactants with uses ranging from therapeutic cosmetics that regenerate damaged skin to controlling algae blooms in lakes and ponds.
“We have successfully demonstrated the use of restaurant waste oil as a potential low-cost lipid feedstock for sophorolipid production,” the researchers report.
Well ok, but I wanted it to run my car. Oh well, that’s why we have a free market system - may the most profitable use win!
- Posted in : Uncategorized
- Author :Rt
Comments»
For the most part if your car is a diesel and was built after the late 80’s you can simply put bio-diesel into the tank and go. Many people get grease cars (cars that run on what you would cook your fries in) and biodiesel (which is a fuel created from vegetable oil) confused, you need to make some pretty major modifications to run on grease, not so with bio-d.
The problem older cars have with biodiesel is that it is a pretty strong solvent and can eat away at natural rubber gaskets and hoses (parts that are now made out of more sturdy synthetic rubber). You may also have problems with your fuel filter, because bio-d is such a good solvent it will remove the years of nasty buildup in your fuel system,(giving you better engine preformance), which can clog your fuel filter. If you are switching over to pure bio-d from dino-d you should make sure you do not have natural rubber parts, and be ready to change the fuel filter after a couple weeks of driving.
You should also take caution when driving in cold weather as bio-d gels at a slightly warmer temp (just below freezing) than dino-d does. The solution for this is to go to a b20 blend (20% bio-d 80% dino-d) during the cold months.
As far as making bio-d being dangerous…well yes the chemicals you use can explode, but so can gasoline and you pump that into your car all the time. The lye they talk about is no more dangerous than using Drano, and methanol while very flammable if handled properly is not any more dangerous than gasoline or lighter fluid.
I have made bio-d a handful of times and if safety precautions are followed it can very safe.
Roger that on the conversion needed for the straight vegetable oil (SVO). Here is a well done, if dated, article explaining many aspects of engines using veggy oil. (Not for you Naib, in case someone else would like to look.)
As far as the commercial bio you can use, the natural rubber gaskets and tubing have been phased out for some time now. Not to say, if you have an old enough engine, they aren’t there, but they aren’t in newer vehicles.
The biggest problem with anything but a brand new engine is the disolving of all the sediments deposited by using the dino diesel (I’m led to believe the oil comes more from plant matter than dinosaurs but I like the phrase). Once these sediments are disolved they clog the filter. I have read it is recommended putting in an extra filter for the “break in” period and changing both filters frequently. Once the engine is clean again you can do away with the extra filter.
The cold weather is problematic. Even dino diesel has problems, just at a lower temperature. PBS had a great show on building the Alaskan highway. As I remember they sometimes had to build fires under the fuel tanks to start the diesel engines, other times they just left the engines running 24 hours a day (seems more sensible to me :). I have read that the feedstock of the biodiesel affects the temperature characteristics. For now your suggestion is very prudent when the weather turns very cold (some people consider 50 to be cold :).
Most of my friends could probably make bio at home (or would be smart enough to know their limitations) but I don’t know about their friends. If you a home hobbyist already it is just one more fun experiment. I would suggest you start you home hobboy experience with less caustic substances and work up to bio diesel.