Alternative fuels > Bio-diesel Fuel

Has anyone seen/heard about this yet?

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Stan:
Rocket... 
Nope...Canola isn't short for Canadian.....anything, its a name the marketing board came up with to keep away from the work rape. 
btw...its good for you, less of the "bad" fats and more of the good fats than most other oils.  Rape seed is much easier to grow with less associated field work than anything exept maybe oats. (and you can't get much oil from oats, just livestock)
Take it from an old ex farmer.
Stan

rpg52:
Interesting calculations lgsracer - keep in mind that there are hidden energy costs of algae found in the structures and water to grow it.  Not much water in desert lands, regardless of how much sun they get.  It seems to me the world will have a tough time just feeding itself over the next 100 years or so, growing crops for oil just doesn't seem practical IMHO.  Also, often the inherent energy used in building and maintaining the tractors is conveniently ignored in most calculations.  When added to the fuel used in cultivation and the fuel used to make and transport fertilizers, it just doesn't add up as a practical matter.  Interestingly, using poor quality lands to grow forage for traction animals is a way to have your cake and eat it too.  The soil is protected,  the land isn't appropriate for growing human food anyway, and low quality, inedible (by humans) vegetation is converted to useful power.  I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but as much as I love to play with old iron, I don't think we can ever replace fossil fuels with vegetable oil.  Just my $0.02 though, my training leads me to be very suspicious of creating something from nothing. 
Incidentally,
--- Quote ---Photosynthesis is known to have an efficiency rate of about 16% and if the entire mass of a crop is utilized for energy production, the overall efficiency of this chain is known to be about 1%.
--- End quote ---
  I've always seen the efficiency rate of photosynthesis as being closer to 4%.  I suppose it depends on how it is measured though.
Ray

quinnf:

This stuff is interesting, but as has been pointed out, you have to factor in all the costs, and in the end it might be a better use of your resources to throw your lot in with the capitalists and grow the highest cash value crop you are able to, and buy your fuel.  However, if you have the spare land and want to experiment, more power to you!

Many years ago, my botany prof said that the most efficient crop, in terms of conversion of sunlight into organic matter, is good old corn.  You've got, what? 3 crops/year? and all that waste that can be used to feed cattle, etc. 

One thing I'd really like to see is a machine to make wood pellets for burning in a pellet stove.  Seems with the right binding agent you could press corn/hay stubble, waste wood, the neighbor's cat, anything you want into nice little pellets and use them to heat your home.  So far, I've not seen anything that does that.  Any thoughts?

Quinn

lgsracer:
Turns out they are modified feed pellet mills, you need a hammer mill to reduce the wood to powder, unfortunately most of these mills are 40hp or larger. Here is a link to a Welsh site that has a small experimental unit running with a 10hp motor. I think that would be the way to go.

http://www.coedcymru.org.uk/woodpelletenergy.html



--- Quote from: quinnf on December 22, 2005, 07:14:33 PM ---
One thing I'd really like to see is a machine to make wood pellets for burning in a pellet stove.  Seems with the right binding agent you could press corn/hay stubble, waste wood, the neighbor's cat, anything you want into nice little pellets and use them to heat your home.  So far, I've not seen anything that does that.  Any thoughts?

Quinn


--- End quote ---

rpg52:
Pellets seem like a much more practical use of already existing biomass.  I have a particular interest, living where I do in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada (CA).  We have a serious (and growing, pun intended) wildfire problem with hazardous woody material.  The high value logs have a ready market, but not the brush and small diameter trees that are the problem.  Local people are seriously considering pellets, but it seems the pellets for home use must be relatively low ash content, meaning mostly clean soft woods like pine.  Hard woods like oaks produce too much ash, and only a commercial size burn unit designed to handle greater ash production can be used.  It doesn't mean they can't be used, but currently there isn't enough demand to justify making pellets from other fuels economically.  Seems like if the price of other fuels stay high enough for long enough it is likely to happen, just not yet.
Ray

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