biodiesel is here to stay!

[Dirtcheap]

i just finished reading the new issue of DIESEL WORLD ... NEW HOLLAND has released a tractor that is b100 "friendly"... with this and ford raising the bio levels to b20 its only a matter of time before the rest of the world gets on board... it will sure be nice to buy a "new" truck that i wont recieve fits from the dealer because of the type of fuel i use...

[drcampbell]

Deutz is also on board for most of its engines.
DEUTZ AG - Press Room - Press Releases - Use of bio-fuels in DEUTZ engines

But don't get too excited too soon. America consumes 75 billion gallons of Diesel fuel annually; an acre of farmland can yield about 100 gallons of bioDiesel fuel, so converting America over to bioDiesel would require planting 750 million acres in bioDiesel oilseed crops.

Unfortunately, America has only 433 million acres of arable land. (and we need to grow food on at least some of it)

[Dirtcheap]

drcampbell... youre 100% correct... but, the there is a ton of unused land available in NV for alage, and we could start using the waste from restaurants that we are now reclaiming to ship overseas i.e. china... its a large step in the right direction...

[drcampbell]

Instant farmland, just add water?
There's a reason all that land in Nevada is currently unused. Fill an algae pond on Wednesday and it'll be dry on Friday.

There's less than 1 billion gallons of WVO generated annually; America consumes 75 billion gallons of Diesel fuel. You do the math.

Remember that waste doesn't just spontaneously exist; it, too, has to be grown, mined or manufactured. Not that putting waste to use is a bad idea, but a more effective idea is to not create that waste in the first place.

(for bystanders & onlookers, "WVO" is Waste Vegetable Oil)

[Dirtcheap]

ive seen where theyre using sewer/wastewater treatment plants/ponds to grow the alage... sounds like 2 birds with 1 stone to me... maybe 3 as you could move those stinky/unsightly poop ponds to NV... let the sand and sun smell that nasty stuff .. i totally agree about making less waste.. we as a country ,etc need to do a better job of recycling... after all thats what our forefathers did... they didnt run out and buy a new pair of work boots they resoled them etc..

[rsr911]

They are also looking a vertical algae. It's algae in water circulated around vertical plastic sheets. The sheets are laminated to form tubes to pump the algae through. Apparently this aggravates the algae and causes it to release more oil.

Now we just need a serial diesel electric hybrid that will run on 100% BD as well as blended fuels. I think this could be accomplished with modern EFI. Heck the military has had multi-fuel vehicles for years.

[drcampbell]

Do you have any idea how much energy it'd take to pump sewage a long distance? You'd consume more fuel than you'd make.

Then what happens to the water? If you did pump sewage from, say, Saint Louis to sunny Nevada, the Mississippi River would dry up and the Louisiana Delta would disappear. A lot of folks would be unhappy with that.

Civil engineers in New Orleans say of Mississippi River water, "Drunk eight times before it arrives", because the total amount of water taken out of the river for municipal use (and put back in) is eight times the flow rate. A river absolutely relies on sewage water being put back in.* (after treatment, of course)

Vertical algae solves the water problem by confining everything between plastic sheets and preventing evaporation, but where do plastic sheets come from? Petroleum. It'll be a long time before that project breaks even on oil use, maybe never depending on how the long plastic sheets hold up in direct sunlight. Then there's that same old problem of pumps consuming more fuel than the process yields.

If it was simple, economical and yielded a positive net energy return on energy invested, (or there were Federal subsidies available, as for ethanol) somebody would already be doing it.



* Have you ever wondered why beer breweries in northern Wisconsin and western Colorado always proclaim, "It's the Water!", but beer breweries in Saint Louis and New Orleans are notoriously silent about water quality?
Now you know: Kidney-filtered eight times.

[Ky_0686]

I know that there are a lot of problems to overcome with trying alternative fuels, especially with making sure that the yield is efficient enough to make it worth while. And while it may not be simple, economical, or a positive yield right now, maybe it could be in the future, and maybe it won't. However, if we don't try new things, we may never know if we can make them simple and economical, and/or come across new solutions to these problems or others. Time will tell I guess, but I think any and all research that can help us to keep our life styles the way they are, now that we have become dependant on oil and oil based products, is a worth while venture. I also believe that our way of life needs to change so that there is more Recycyle, Reduce, and Reuse, but I'd hate to give up the ability to drive/fly cross country or internationally for business/trade/vacation. If algae/hydrogen/solar/wind power technolgies will allow us to do that in 25-50 years, then so be it. Look how far internal combustion engines have come since their invention, and when they debuted no one though they were a viable mode of transportation, now we can't live without them. Just my opinion, for what its worth.

[davidpa28140]

I agree completly with KY0686, while we can't replace foriegn oil with bio diesel, we can replace some of it which has far reaching benefits, keeping money spent here on our poeple and some leverage on the now strangle hold we have allowed ourselves to get in, with our dependence on foriegn oil. No doubt we need to change the throw away culture as well. Nice post Dirt Cheap.
I'm not a big supporter of ethanol but think bio diesel is a great alternative.

[rsr911]

I hate to say it but why not follow the France model of nuclear power generation? My understanding is they made their plants the same and get a large portion of their electricity from nuclear power. As far as I know the US Navy has had a really good track record with nuclear subs and ships, why not bring those methods onto land? With cheaper and (maybe greener) electricity and the developments needed in battery technology electric cars and even trucks would become more viable. This would greatly reduce the need for petro fuels for transportation. Take advantage of trains for large freight, make semi tractors serial hybrids as well as other large on road vehicles, etc.

Again it's economics. I deal with a small trucking company, all of their newer trucks are the aero design and the owner even gets the other aero options to reduce wind drag. He also runs straight pipes on most of the trucks. As he explained it to me even a 1mpg savings on a tractor is huge to the bottom line. He's been around the large serial hybrid excavating equipment and would love to see something like that in a semi tractor. Of course we need a lot of improvement in the batteries to get there.

I have though many times how neat it would be to modify my van with two electric motors and controllers. One for the rear and one for the front. Engaging the front would give more acceleration and pulling power when needed as well as 4x4 while the rest of the time I could roll around on a single motor. Of course I am not even close to having the money to do it right but it's a neat concept nonetheless.

[drcampbell]

There's no benefit to equipping an over-the-road semi tractor with a hybrid powertrain. You would lose 5-10% of the energy in the generator, another 5-10% in the inverter and still another 5-10% in the motor(s), and add a lot of weight. Earthmovers and locomotives use it for operational flexibility, (great torque at zero axle rpm) not fuel economy.

Not much energy is lost in a driveshaft and one pair of gears, and the power loading of a semi is typically 10 horsepower per ton - 1/10 what it is in a passenger car.

A lot more bang for the buck is available by equipping OTR semis with electric heat & air conditioning and installing shore power at truckstops. Which makes more sense - $40 for 15 gallons of largely-imported Diesel fuel to idle a 12-liter engine all night or or $4 for 30 kilowatt-hours of mostly-domestic electricity? America consumes nearly a billion gallons of Diesel fuel annually to power idling engines.

Of course, implementing truckstop electrification would be an act of socialism. Gawd forbid we ever spend public funds to achieve a public benefit.

Hybrid powertrains belong in city delivery trucks, with their numerous starts, stops & short trips. Garbage trucks, where the average "trip" length is fifty or a hundred meters, are a natural for hybrid powertrains, as are bucket trucks - if you need a few horsepower a few times an hour, why idle a 200-Hp Diesel engine all day?


As for your pet project, look up EAWD. (Electric All-Wheel Drive)

[drcampbell]

Originally Posted by davidpa28140

... while we can't replace foreign oil with bio Diesel, we can replace some of it which has far reaching benefits, keeping money spent here ...

Less than 1% of America's appetite for Diesel fuel can be satisfied with WVO, (waste vegetable oil) most of which is already being recycled and reused. (raw, contaminated WVO already fetches $1/gallon in many parts of the country) We're already using 1/3 of the corn crop to make ethanol & E85 without making a dent in petroleum imports and there's little or no surplus farmland available to plant oilseed crops on.

If we want to avert a (bigger) catastrophe, we need to figure out how to cut America's petroleum consumption by 50%, not by 1%. It's time to get serious about driving more efficiently and driving less. And getting any of that to happen means getting political.

The Bush administration took a good step forward by enacting slightly better CAFE standards, but it's too little, too late.

[Dirtcheap]

nuclear power, N.I.M.B.Y.... ive been looking to buy some land 30 miles north of me and the local power co. bought several hundred acres right near where ive been looking ... they have proposed building a nuke plant... now im looking elesewhere... far , far elsewhere.. ever heard of chernobol (?) ... the only way we as a country/culture will use less fuel/oil is if we're forced too, either through the current neo-social-fascist administration, or we turn into a madmaxx like people...( cause we used it all up)

[drcampbell]

Originally Posted by Dirtcheap

... the only way we ... will use less fuel/oil is if we're forced to ...

I fear you might be right. Two summers ago, when the pump price of gasoline & Diesel passed $4 & $5, consumption went down by all of 4%.

What do you think of this approach? It wold create a free-market incentive for using less oil without a mandate, rationing or cap and wouldn't remove any wealth from the economy.
How to Solve the Climate Problem

[Dirtcheap]

just remember that $ is the driving factor and sombody will get rich no matter what we use for fuel.. the man with $ makes the dicision as to what we'll use in the future ...