So I thought I'd put together a little series on what is currently considered "alternative fuels," that is, fuels from renewable resources that are being developed with the intention of replacing petroleum. Everyone knows about the hybrid and electric cars, but what about hydrogen, water, biodiesel, or ethanol fuels? The idea here will be to gather information about the lesser-known fuel alternatives and relay them here. The first fuel showcased in this series will be biodiesel.
Economic and Political Impact
In general, this will apply to most, if not all of the fuel options, since the big thing is that it will drastically reduce our dependency on foreign oil, offering more security and helping to cut spending on imports.
You also have increased profit for the industried involved (in the case of biodiesel and ethanol, the farm industry), since demand will go up and help increase prices. Given the number of options of plants that can be used to produce biodiesel, there's also no need to drastically increase farm production or worry about food shortages.
So, what is Biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a diesel-type fuel make from vegetable oils or animal fat (tallow). One of the biggest advantage to biodiesel is that it can be used in an unmodified diesel engine (the diesel engine was actually originally designed to run on a crop-based fuel), this has allowed many companies to adopt the use of biodiesel in their fleets. A biodiesel truck is easy to spot, too. It smells like french fries.
Biodiesel can be created from almost any part of a number of different plants, including soy, corn, and even algae; it can also be made from animal fats, vegetable oil (like what you buy in the store), and waste oils (used cooking oil, for example). The process of making fuel-grade biodiesel from oil removes the impurities and results in biodiesel and glycerin, which can be used to make soap, while making it from dry stock results in the creation of a nutrient-rich meal that can be used to feed animals.
Biodiesel vs. Petroleum
Like I said before, biodiesel can completely replace petrolium diesel in an unmodified engine (with the exception of old engines that still use rubber hoses and other parts which need to be upgraded to modern parts because of biodiesel's tendency to break down the rubber). If used in an engine that has used petro-diesel enough for build-up, biodiesel breaks the petrolium residue down, often clogging fuel filters. Once the remains of the build-up are gone, however, the engine runs clean and the life of the engine is actually increased.
When used pure, it doesn't have quite as much power as petro-diesel, but it burns far cleaner. There is no carbon monoxide, sulfur, or particular matter, and the output of carbon dioxide nets to zero (it technically puts out CO2, but since the fuel source wasn't laying dormant for millions of years, it's considered part of the plant's life cycle and therefore puts out the same amount of CO2 that it took in while alive). Also unlike petro-diesel, biodiesel is nontoxic (you could actually drink it, though I hear it doesn't taste good), and has a lower flash point, which makes it safer to transport and store. It does, however, have a higher "freezing point" (where it solidifies), so it needs additives or heaters to allow for cold-weather use. Cold weather biodiesel is getting developed, though.
Biodiesel can also be mixed with petro-diesel to make a blend. This allows for cleaner emmissions and helps to increase engine life while still keeping the power and fluid properties/freezing point from petro-diesel (depending on the blend).
In the past, biodiesel was, at best, the same price as petro-diesel, giving people little incentive to switch. Now that oil prices are rising, biodiesel is more competitive in price and sometimes even cheaper than petro-diesel. The government is also moving to give tax incentives to supplier and users of biodiesel.
Biodiesel still has a long way to go to becoming a mainstream fuel source, but it has great potential, especially since engines do not need to be modified.
For more information, check out the National Biodiesel Board.
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I think biodiesel is a decent idea and had toyed around with the idea of having a vehicle that ran on fryer oil.
Then I looked into the things most people don’t think of: Taxes.
There have been a few documented cases of people being charged, by the federal and/or state governments, of not paying 'their fair share' of fuel taxes, since their vehicle doesn't burn fuel they buy from a gas station.
Now, there is no way to track how much a person spends on fuel, especially if people pay with cash. So as to HOW they arrived at that number imposed (each case was a few grand fine to make up for their 'fair share') I doubt we'll really ever know.
What is average fuel usage? I used to get 12.5 mpg in my pickup, I get around 24 to 26 in my 1995 beretta.
They say that the tax is for road repairs and that each person pays a fair share... but the reality is that those with poor gas mileage vehicles pay more taxes than those with better mileage vehicles. If they were really concerned with 'fairness' wouldn't they give those with poor mileage vehicles a rebate, and require additional money from those with better mileage vehicles?
With biofuels, the government's taxpeople do not control the fuel distribution in terms of taxability. I think that, more than any conspiracy anyone has about auto manufacturers, is why we don't see more electric-only or biofuel vehicles on the market.
more taxes just increases incentive to operate outside of what is taxed, which is why you've seen an increase in biodiesel usage.
I agree about the taxes part, though I think it has a lot to do with the Bush administration.
That said, if the tax money really went to road repairs, they should really be taxing the Amish. No offense to them as a people, but their buggies tear up the roads worse than semis do.
I have heard about those cases, and from what I've heard, it involved people using the hybrid cars or the ones that are manufacturing their own biofuel and either store a large amount of it or selling it without conforming to certain "regulations."
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Bush Administration? How on earth do you get to that?
Fuel Taxes predate either President Bush.
In fact, President Bush has rejected further calls by a Democrat Congress.
When Gore was the VP, he was pushing a big fuel tax increase to fund his pet conservation programs.
Just last month, the New York Times ran stories berating the President for vetoing gas tax increase bills passed by the Democrats in Congress.
>.< Wow, wasn't thinking on that one. You're right, he's actually working for alternative fuels through tax breaks on those vehicles.
Too much anti-Bush stuff going around (at least in my head).
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Excellent post. I think you covered all the important facts about biodiesel. It really is a great option to use, and what's even better is that they are developing hybrid vehicles that are electric/biodiesel.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson
Great idea, it feels like trying to about alternative energy with people always starts out with finding that they only know about hybrid electric cars. It is great seeing someone trying to get the word out about other forms of energy. Excellent choice of information as well, you appear to have covered all the important facts without getting too technical.
Well that is something new to hear about. Thank you and well written. I did not even know that was an option already. I heard of using corn oil in england or something when the were having a crisis but as usual those news cast were cut short.
Well done I cannot wait till pt 2
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo
Biodiesel has actually become a main fuel source in many parts of Europe, which is kind of cool.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I am no biodiesel expert but are there any drawbacks, if so what are they? I know ethanol, which comes from corn, actually cost more to manufacture and transport than it would help. Biodiesel sounds somewhat similar to ethanol. And if so where do can we put these giant farms for the plants and animals specifically for biodiesel? I like alternative fuels, but what are the cost v. benefits of each. Perhaps you can address both areas in future posts about solar, wind, wave energy.
Great post though.
Silent enim leges inter arma
Unlike Ethanol, Biodiesel doesn't require the whole plant. Actually, it doesn't even require plants. Like I said before, you can even use waste vegetable oil and recycle what's already used. I don't know if you've ever worked fast food (if not, avoid it like the plague!), but a standard sized fast food restaraunt has two to three vats that hold probably 50-100 gallons of oil a piece (maybe more, that's just a guesstimate). I'm not sure how often that gets changed, but say it's changed twice a month. So, 600 gallons a month per restaraunt, times that by the number of total restaraunts in a city (let's say 100 for the sake of argument). That's 6000 gallons of stock per month just from waste vegetable oil.
Now, obviously, that alone won't be enough, so we'll need other sources. Well, when we grow crops, we generally only consume the seed portion. What happens to the rest of it? Well, depending on the farm, it might be used for compost or feed for animals, but it generally goes to waste. Why not use it to make biodiesel and still have feed (one of the byproducts of making biodiesel from the crops is a protein-base dry feed)?
Also, the different raw stocks (ones that aren't already an oil) yield different amounts of oil per bushel. Corn, for example, has actually one of the worst yields, but since it's highly abundant in many areas, it's often looked to as a source (as with soy, especially in the Midwest). Algae, actually, has a very, very high yield (something crazy like 200 gals per bushel vs corn's 20 gals and it's like twice the yield of the next highest crop). There are enough stocks, though, that no matter what you use, you can typically use crops native to or readily available in the area (South America, for example, uses Sugar Cane).
As it stands right now, since it's still a small section of the fuel industry without much public funding for research and development, it is still somewhat expensive to make. However, thanks to rising oil prices, it's now on par with petro (basically, after taxes and transportation, it comes out to be about $2.50 a gallon or so). I think that as the industry grows, you'll see that cost go down.
The three biggest drawbacks I've seen when doing my research (and I did quite a bit, since I got to do a nice, big project on it) were that it doesn't get quite as much horsepower as petro-diesel (something like 8/10 of the power, it's not much, but a lot of people like their horses), what it does to engines (breaks down natural rubber in old engines and breaks down the build-up in the tank/lines, resulting in clogged filters for the first couple of tanks), and the fact that it has a rather high solidifying temperature (something like 15 or 20 degrees). The power thing, in my opinion, isn't that big of a deal. It's a small difference, really, and if a fleet of semis can use it without problems, I don't think it's an issue. I can kind of understand the filter clogging thing, since that can be somewhat expensive at first, but hell, it's cleaning your system of the gunk the petroleum left behind. As for the solidifying temperature...well, that will come with research (I think they've already got some solutions, but not quite ideal to what the industry really wants).
I hope I answered your questions.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A few things --
It's important to realize that using land-based crops as biodiesel fuel feedstock sources does have an impact. As you may have noticed lately on another front, the diversion of corn from food to fuel feedstock has resulted in a rise in the price of corn and a reduction in its availability as food. Now corn and soybeans are competing for land as they both come on line as fuel feedstock, which will further impact corn's availability as food, for both humans and non-humans. While we in the U.S. don't make much of this on the corn-as-food issue, I can assure you that many in Mexico and Latin America find it quite disconcerting and a direct impact, as the price of the staple corn tortilla has risen dramatically. As corn disposition and price change, the cost of feeding meat animals rises, thus the rise in their cost and sometimes reduction in their availability.
Also realize that cultivation of land-based crops requires land, additional fuel, additional water and soil augmentation with fertilizers, which must also be mined, refined, shipped and applied, contributing to cost of production in ways economic, environmental and aesthetic as a minimum.
A strong cost issue that is receiving attention lately is an environmental one. Fertilizer and soil runoff from land-based crops (that increases as more land is used for fuel production) is resulting in hypoxic "dead zones" in ocean areas such as the Gulf of Mexico (and others), as the excess nutrients cause algal blooms which in turn deplete dissolved oxygen, which kills all life in the water there that use oxygen.
A last note on your post -- initial biodiesel use does not clog air filters. It may clog fuel filters with petrodiesel residue from the tanks and fuel lines.
I've been following the notion of algal oil as a feedstock for biodiesel production. Although algal oil production is not nearly as mature as land plant oil, it has several advantages. Inputs to algae growth are water and CO2. Water consumption is far less that that required for production of the same amount of vegetable oil from land plants, and the yield of oil per acre of land is vastly superior to that of land plants. The water can be extracted from the algae and recycled back as a growth medium. Power plants can be used as a source of CO2, no matter what they burn. As with land plants, algae residue can be used to provide food for meat animals, or as cellulose stock for ethanol production. Algae production can be undertaken where land plants cannot be effectively grown -- the desert. Overall, algae production can be done with far greater geographiic distribution, reducing the requirement for transportation of the end product over thousands of miles topoint of use.
In the end, remember that the most natural and non-polluting resource for transportation is on the bottoms of your feet.
Perhaps you should read my post and responses more carefully. Nowhere did I say that biodiesel itself clogs filters (although I do realize I said air filters and meant fuel filters, which will be corrected promptly). I said that it's ability to break down petroleum buildup causes clogs.
Also, where are you getting your information that soy and corn are competing for land? They're rotation crops, grow corn where you grew soy last year.
You should probably consider reading my responses to other posters. Otherwise you would know that biodiesel does not require the entire plant. In fact, the biodiesel industry never has to touch the edible parts of the plants, therefore having no impact on the supply of, say, corn. If you had read my replies, you would also notice that I said almost the exact same thing that you said regarding the fact that algae is a far superior feedstock for biodiesel production.
The answer for how to go about mass producing biodiesel, however, does not lie in a single source. That's what has gotten us in trouble with fuel right now. We're too dependent on a single source. The best way to go about it is to use multiple sources for feedstock. There's at least a couple dozen potential sources (some better than others, admittedly). With that many potential sources, dust bowls should not be an issue if farmers are intelligent about their crop rotations.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I did read all, perhaps not as carefully as I might.
I understand the mechanism of the clogged filters; I was really just correcting the air v. fuel item.
Corn and soy do indeed compete for land; however your statment about them being rotational crops is true, and the competition is primarily about the futures market, which will slosh back and forth from year to year. I think that the issue of ethanol v. soy oil will probably result in a very interesting market battle.
I'm not sure about how one makes biodiesel out of seed plants aside from the seed, but I'm open to enlightenment.
I guess I'd say that what food plants as fuel stocks really means is that the different markets compete for the commodities, which will in fact drive up prices. In either case, the consumer pays unless the end result is a fuel so less expensive due to fuel costs that cash is freed up for other foods, other things.
And your end quote has quite a fine point on it -- Who, indeed, is minding the minders? Unfortunately the economy is amoral, and our government isn't too good at setting public policy that will guide the whole fuel and food issues.
I think the rise in crop prices will actually help the farmers more than hurt them for the most part, since most farmers have issues with crop prices being too low.
When it comes to crops as food, we generally only consume the seed or fruit parts. This leaves the stalks, leaves, roots, etc. to go to other purposes. In this situation, it could be used to make biodiesel (this is the biggest advantage it has over Ethanol, since Ethanol requires the whole plant, biodiesel can be made from pretty much anything that yields oil).
I don't think Ethanol and Biodiesel will compete much (at least in the United States) unless auto manufacturers decide to switch most/all their vehicles to diesel, since Ethanol is more akin to gasoline whereas Biodiesel is more akin to...well....diesel. Now, as for other fuel/energy sources, that remains to be seen.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?